Abstract for: Deploying buffering strategies in pork meat supply chains to deal with disruptions

This paper discusses and evaluate the opportunities in pork supply chains to deal with a sudden crises causing a disrupted supply chain. To this end, we evaluate supply chain strategies in response the COVID-19 pandemic for a Dutch pork processor with the aim to identify how to trade off buffering strategies in such a crisis situation. Using a system dynamics model we simulate the behaviour of the stocking system under different supply chain disruption scenarios to stress test the pork meat supply chain. The model shows the trade-offs involved in the decision-making process regarding the use of frozen inventory as well as the potential of the system to create robustness for the firm while maintaining cost-efficiency and high service levels.