Through this project, we aim to enhance capability in higher education with a special focus on supply chain & logistics networks performance enhancements satisfying three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – quality education, gender equality, and decent work and economic growth.
Department of Mechanical and Structural Engineering and Materials Science of UiS lead by Professor R.M. Chandima Ratnayake, in collaboration with the Bandung Institute of Technology and University of Moratuwa is leading this project.
Developing nations face challenges in their supply chain and logistics networks (SC&LNs) that have seriously slowed down their economic progress. Issues pertaining to the lack of qualified and knowledgeable workers, mismatch or absence of supply and demand information, lack of support to enhance high-impact research outputs to develop local academic competencies, slow adoption of new technologies and methodologies have significantly contributed to this slow progress. These issues are highly evident in Indonesia (IN), especially in the West Java region and Sri Lanka (SL). The primary objective of this project is to facilitate capacity building on the above stated areas in IN and SL using the knowledge and technology acquired by Norway.
Key objectives:
- Capacity building of professionals in the industry
- Bridging the supply/demand gap through seamless information flow
- Improving research education and South-South-North research linkages and the sharing of Industry 4.0 inspired technologies.
Achieving the above objectives will facilitate a significant improvement of the supply chain by enabling lean principles and digitization fundamentals. The objectives reflect 3 main areas: education, research, and knowledge dissemination.
The project focuses on:
- Creating new opportunities for marginalized and underprivileged communities by providing educational and growth opportunities transferring best practices from Norway.
- Industrial entities and stakeholders will be benefited from potential waste reductions in SC&LNs via best practices; lean thinking reinforced by digital supply chains and Industry 4.0 competencies, creating further innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities.
- Five dual degree PhD projects: 3 PhD students from Indonesia and 2 PhD projects from Sri Lanka.
Other objectives:
- Making Innovative Circular Economy Business Model in Household Waste Management impactful to Society (Supervisor Norway – Associate Prof. Samindi Samarakoon).
- Digital Transformation in Agriculture Supply Chain Using Blockchain Technology (Supervisor Norway – Prof. R.M. Chandima Ratnayake).
- Design of Supply Chain Management process in Hospital Organization to satisfy Circular Economy goals for improving effectiveness (Supervisor Norway – Prof. R.M. Chandima Ratnayake).
- Implement Industry 4.0 to implement circular economy goals in the Sri Lankan agriculture sector supply chains (Supervisor Norway – Prof. R.M. Chandima Ratnayake).
- Use of industry 4.0 technologies for enhancing the circular economy practices in agriculture Industry supply chains (Supervisor Norway – Prof. R.M. Chandima Ratnayake).
The project is funded by Norad through the Norhed II 2021-2026 programme which supports North-South-South university partnerships for projects on capacity development in higher education and research.