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Abstract

Despite the northern beef industry’s longevity, scale and importance, recent disruptions to

external markets have demonstrated a degree of industry vulnerability to supply chain shocks.

Matching the industry’s long-evident resilience to climatic variability with resilience to

changes in markets and supply chains will require careful planning and investment in

logistics. This paper provides an outline of a new project, funded by a collective of northern

Australian Governments, to provide the northern beef industry and related stakeholders (e.g.

state and federal governments) with tactical and operational dynamic models of industry

logistics along the supply chain from farm gate through to export port. A valuable novelty of

the model is the high granularity of individual vehicle movements and the ability to scale up

to a holistic view of logistics costs across the entire northern industry. This enables an

iterative examination of how changes in logistics infrastructure could result in improved

efficiency and increased productivity that, in turn, suggest further possible changes in

infrastructure investment and operations under different market scenarios. This project is one

of a suite of projects that support beef and allied industry development across northern

Australia.