True Demand-Driven Semiconductor Supply Chains for Europe

Announcing the Kickoff of SC4EU Project: 
Revolutionizing Semiconductor Demand Forecasting

 

Athens, Greece 16. April 2024

We are thrilled to announce the official kickoff of the SC4EU project, funded under the HORIZON-KDT-JU-2023 call. This pioneering initiative aims to tackle the pervasive challenges posed by the bullwhip effect in semiconductor supply chains, a phenomenon that has resulted in detrimental consequences such as excessive inventory, decreased revenue, and significant shortages, particularly evident during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and previous financial downturns. The SC4EU consortium is embarking on a mission to transform semiconductor demandforecasting by leveraging cutting-edge technologies and methodologies. At the heart of thesolution lies the ambition to obtain high-quality, reliable data for semiconductor demandforecasting. In the solution envisioned by SC4EU, data will be gathered via an anonymoussurvey based on Multi-Party Computation technology. Anonymity and security of data flowwill encourage business partners to share their true demand data. Then, the gathered datawill be mapped onto ontologies (semantic representations of the semiconductor industry) and processed with AI tools for demand breakdown of fine granularity.

 

Key Objectives of SC4EU:

The overall goal of the SC4EU project is to develop a solution for better demand forecasting in semiconductor supply chains. This objective will be achieved by establishing a true demand platform – a service available to companies included in semiconductor supply chains. On its way to the platform realization SC4EU consortium will specifically target the following objectives: 

  • Establish an improved version of the Digital Reference ecosystem and ensure its maintenance 
  • Provide secure access to the true demand forecasting services and integrate them with cloud services and other dataspaces 
  • Integration of collaborative ontology processing tools into the SC4EU Ontology Curation Portal and availability of Continuous Integration pipelines
  • Provision of an integrated and collaborative ontology editing and visualisation tooling
  • Provision and establishment of an integrated SSO solution for all SC3 Portal connected tools
  • Development of a consistent, modular and semantic description of semiconductor supply chains that can be used to generate meaningful demand forecasts for the supply chain
  • Design and test of demand forecasting methods that especially allow to disaggregate demand information
  • Development of the Survey Use Case
  • Using True Demand Forecasts for the Generation of Semiconductor Industry Forecasts
  • Establish a technical implementation of the anonymous survey using multi-party computation technology
  • Incentivisation for participation in anonymous survey in order to obtain data
  • Promote the use of the data sharing platform amongst the semiconductor supply chain organisations

 

Innovation Strategy:

  • The SC4EU consortium’s approach for improving supply demand forecast in the semiconductor industry and mitigating bullwhip effect is based on:
  • anonymous data sharing with use of Multi-Party Computation,
  • semantic data processing to obtain high quality data of fine granularity,
  • close cooperation of semiconductor companies and research institutes,
  • focus on human factors,
  • application of gamification and relate techniques for data sharing incentivisation

 

One of the most innovative aspects of this solution is the use of anonymous data sharing. By anonymizing the data, the solution ensures that no company's confidential information is shared, and only aggregated data are used for analysis. This ensures that companies can trust the solution and are more likely to participate in data sharing. The solution also brings together several semiconductor companies to collaborate on solving the issue of the bullwhip effect. This collaboration is important as it allows for a more holistic approach to the problem, with multiple perspectives and expertise being brought to the table. This can result in a more effective and sustainable solution. The use of gamification is another innovative aspect of the solution. By introducing game elements, such as challenges and rewards, the solution incentivises data sharing and active participation in the platform. This can encourage companies to take an active role in addressing the bullwhip effect and can lead to a more engaged and motivated workforce. Multi-Party Computation is a crucial component of this solution as it allows for secure and efficient analysis of the data while maintaining confidentiality. This is essential for maintaining trust between companies and ensuring the success of the solution. Finally, the focus of human factors is also important. By taking into account the psychology, cognitive limitations, and behaviour of people, the solution can be designed to be more user-friendly and intuitive. This can improve adoption rates and ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform. All the above-mentioned techniques, to our best knowledge, represent a new and highly innovative approach to solving the problem of the bullwhip effect in the semiconductor industry