EPCA's Supply Chain Program Committee continues to focus on competitiveness and resilience. At the Annual Meeting in Vienna this October, it is preparing a panel to answer this question: what does a genuinely competitive European chemical company look like in 2035, and what does it take to build one? This is also a question that has shaped the committee's work this year.
The context is demanding. Around 9,000 km of Germany's rail network is being rebuilt between now and 2036. Capacity is tight across most modes, drivers are in short supply, and costs continue to rise. Competition for supply chain talent is intensifying, and AI is changing what that talent is expected to do. Sustainability has slipped down the agenda this year, though it has not disappeared.
Taken together, supply chains need to adapt in order to continue to move the volumes customers need, in the modes they prefer, at a cost they can accept. The committee's role is to help members prepare, and its work runs through three subgroups. Stay informed about our latest activities via the SCPC’s dedicated webpage: epca.eu/topic-supply-chain.
Intermodal Transportation Network (ITN)
On 29 May, the committee brought together DB InfraGO, which manages Europe's largest rail network, and SBB Cargo International to consider how freight can keep moving while corridors are closed for renovation.
The main message from both was that predictability matters more than speed. Customers can plan around longer transit times and diversions; what they struggle with is uncertainty. A second point was that no single operator can reopen a corridor on its own. When a key route was disrupted in 2024, the workaround required 11 locomotives and more than 40 drivers, pooled across several operators. Capacity tends to be secured early, in the working groups that form before a closure is announced.
A full summary is available on our website, alongside an InBrief from Dr Youness Lemrabet of Everysens, who argues that the main barrier to rail is operational confidence, and that this depends on better data.
Save the Date: ITN Workshop - 18 November, Düsseldorf
Our next ITN workshop will take place on 18 November in Düsseldorf, the day before the ECTA Annual Meeting. Further details will follow in due course. In the meantime, we warmly welcome any agenda suggestions from members - your input always helps shape these sessions.
Digitalization
EPCA's Supply Chain Committee is partnering with Vlerick Business School on a project exploring how digital tools can improve planning, scheduling and coordination across the petrochemical supply chain. The initiative focuses on a key industry challenge: while companies increasingly use digital systems to manage logistics and operations, information often remains fragmented across organizations, leading to inefficiencies, delays and unnecessary manual work. The project aims to identify opportunities to make end-to-end supply chain planning more efficient, effective and cost-competitive.
Following initial stakeholder discussions, the project has evolved into a survey-based approach that will assess the current maturity of planning and scheduling systems across shippers, logistics service providers and customers, as well as their ambitions for greater automation and autonomy in the future. Insights gathered from the survey will form the basis of a series of interactive workshops later this year, where participants will explore common challenges, emerging best practices and the potential role of AI-enabled planning tools in supply chain decision-making. The findings and recommendations will be shared with the EPCA Supply Chain Committee and participating companies, helping shape the industry's digital transformation agenda.
Keep an eye out for updates on the dedicated Digitalization subgroup page.
Building Supply Chain Adaptability and Resilience
EPCA’s Adaptability subgroup focuses on resilience in practical terms. Working with Deloitte, it is looking into analytical insights to help members adapt their supply chains to changing trade flows. The starting point is to translate the pressures facing the sector, among them energy prices, trade barriers, regulation such as CBAM, and geopolitics, into four hypothetical demand-and-supply scenarios. These are used to prompt a high-level discussion of the challenges ahead and the kinds of supply chain responses members might consider.
A member survey, developed by Deloitte, will gather the community's views on the main trends and possible responses. The findings will be shared through a webinar and taken further at a workshop on 28 October, which assesses a shortlist of interventions for their desirability, feasibility and viability.
SCPC at the EPCA Annual Meeting
Wednesday 7 October 2026 | EPCA Session: How to Shape Europe's Competitive Future
Join us at the 60th EPCA Annual Meeting on Wednesday 7 October for the joint SCPC and Net Zero Transition Committee session, 'How to Shape Europe's Competitive Future’.
Europe's industrial landscape is under profound stress - from energy costs and geopolitical disruption to weakening demand and intensifying global competition. The instinct in crisis is to defend existing structures. But in order to survive, the European Petrochemical industry needs to start boldly building tomorrow.
What does a genuinely competitive European chemical company actually look like in 2035 - and what does it take to build one? How can we reframe this crisis to view it as an opportunity for transformation? The answer cuts across the whole organisation. It is a supply chain that is resilient enough to absorb disruption and agile enough to turn it into advantage. It is a sustainability transition that has been converted from a compliance burden into a source of investment, differentiation and growth. And it is an organisation that attracts, develops and retains the people capable of delivering both. The companies that will lead in a decade are the ones treating resilience, sustainability and talent not as separate agendas managed by separate teams - but as a single, integrated bet on where competitive advantage comes from.
SCPC Members
The SCPC is currently composed of 24 members representing petrochemical producers, LSPs, distributors, digital companies and peer sectorial associations - and is coordinated by Lydia Pernal-Stoddart.
✋ Interested to know more? Drop us an email: scpc.committee@epca.eu