May 25 2026
Work Package 5: Survey Use Case & Demand Forecasting
Building Smarter Demand Forecasting for Semiconductor Supply Chains
Within the SC4EU project, Work Package 5 (WP5) focuses on developing a platform for accurate and secure demand forecasting across semiconductor supply chains. The work addresses one of the key structural challenges within the industry — semiconductor shortages and the lack of transparent, reliable demand visibility across multiple supply chain tiers.
The platform is designed to support flexible and privacy-preserving information exchange between semiconductor manufacturers, Tier-1 suppliers, and OEMs. By combining standardized vocabulary, semantic models, and secure data aggregation mechanisms, WP5 contributes to more accurate forecasting and improved supply chain coordination across the semiconductor ecosystem.
A key performance objective of WP5 is the successful execution of at least three fully technically supported surveys during the project.
Major Progress During the Second Project Year
During the second year of the project, comprehensive survey question sets were successfully designed and finalised for semiconductor manufacturers, Tier-1 suppliers, and OEMs. The work included six dedicated survey instruments covering both yearly context surveys and monthly operational surveys.
These survey structures capture important information such as current demand levels, expected future demand, inventory status, and order cancellations. The result is a more structured and consistent multi-tier view of semiconductor supply chains. One of the major technical milestones achieved within WP5 was the successful execution of a full Multi-Party Computation (MPC) survey across all six defined surveys.
This milestone demonstrated secure and privacy-preserving data aggregation at scale while validating the technical implementation developed together with WP6.
The successful survey run confirmed the feasibility of combining secure computation methods with large-scale industry forecasting activities.
Survey Ontology and Knowledge Graph Integration
To ensure semantic consistency across supply chain tiers, WP5 developed a dedicated Survey Ontology and connected it with the True Demand Knowledge Graph developed under WP2.
This integration supports semantic consistency, data traceability, cross-tier interoperability, and structured mapping between surveys and technology nodes. In parallel, translation tables are being developed to connect end-market segment surveys with technology-node level views. These mechanisms will support tier mapping, aggregation, and disaggregation across the semiconductor supply chain ecosystem.
Reducing Survey Fatigue Through Input Transformation
To improve usability and reduce repetitive data entry for participants, WP5 introduced a locally stored Excel-based input transformation tool.
The tool allows participants to pre-fill and carry forward survey responses from previous reporting periods while maintaining full anonymity within the MPC framework. This functionality improves efficiency and supports more practical recurring survey activities across industry stakeholders.
Key Deliverables and Consortium Collaboration
Several important deliverables and publications were completed during the reporting period, including D5.1 – Draft Survey Requirements Specification & Survey Ontology Feedback, D5.2 – Finalized Survey Requirements Specification & Survey Ontology Feedback, and the joint publication by IFAG and NXP titled “True Demand Framework for Demand and Inventory Transparency Within Semiconductor Supply Chains”.
WP5 also brought together a broad group of industrial and academic partners contributing expertise across demand forecasting, ontology development, analytics, modelling, and platform validation.
Important alignment activities included the Big Picture Workshop in Munich (January 2025) and General Assemblies in Tilburg (June 2025) and Lisbon (October 2025).
Looking Ahead
The next phase of WP5 will focus on finalising translation mechanisms across tiers and technology nodes, refining the survey interface, exploring survey weighting and manipulation detection during Reporting Period 3, and beginning platform validation activities ahead of broader industry adoption.
WP5 has successfully progressed from concept development to practical implementation, with a fully specified, privacy-preserving, semantically grounded demand survey platform now tested and prepared for wider use across the semiconductor ecosystem.
