title: Framework for resilience in material supply chains, with a case study from the 2010 Rare Earth Crisis.
abstract: In 2010, Chinese export restrictions caused the price of the rare earth element neodymium to increase by a factor of 10, only to return to almost normal levels in the following months. This despite the fact that the restrictions were not lifted. The significant price peak shows that this material supply chain was only weakly resistant to a major supply disruption. However, the fact that prices rapidly returned to lower levels implies a certain resilience. With the help of a novel approach, based on resilience theory combined with a material flow analysis (MFA) based representation of the neodymium magnet (NdFeB) supply chain, we show that supply chain resilience is composed of various mechanisms, including (a) resistance, (b) rapidity, and (c) flexibility, that originate from different parts of the supply chain. We make recommendations to improve the capacity of the NdFeB system to deal with future disruptions and discuss potential generalities for the resilience of other material supply chains.
authors.affiliation: †Materials Innovation Institute (M2i), Delft 2600 GA, The Netherlands.|‡Institute for Environmental Sciences (CML,) Leiden University, Leiden 2311 EZ, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sprecher
authors.affiliation: §Department of Materials Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan.
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Daigo
authors.affiliation: ⊥Department of Systems Innovation, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinsuke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Murakami
authors.affiliation: ‡Institute for Environmental Sciences (CML,) Leiden University, Leiden 2311 EZ, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kleijn
authors.affiliation: ∥Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum 44801, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthijs
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vos
authors.affiliation: ‡Institute for Environmental Sciences (CML,) Leiden University, Leiden 2311 EZ, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gert Jan
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Kramer
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce; D008674:Metals, Rare Earth / Q000032:analysis* / Q000191:economics; D008903:Minerals / Q000191:economics; D009354:Neodymium / Q000032:analysis; D013660:Taxes
chemical_list: D008674:Metals, Rare Earth; D008903:Minerals; D009354:Neodymium