Protecting the Critical Infrastructure Supply Chain – a Resilience Engineering Perspective

Overview

Critical infrastructure (CI) supply chain security is of paramount concern to nations across the globe, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic’s decimation of global supply chains and the subsequent rise in international tension and conflict. 

This presentation discusses the approach to CI protection in Australia as compared to the US, UK, Canada, and New Zealand, using Space Technology as an example to highlight the complex supply chain interdependencies between CI sectors.

Learning outcomes

• Approaches to critical infrastructure protection (CIP) are bound to geopolitical / nationally strategic objectives.
• CIP is complex, with layers of operational and technological supply chain interdependencies between sectors.
• Without a cross-sectoral engineering perspective on CIP, overall societal resiliency to advanced nation state threats is reduced.
• Space systems are tightly woven into the fabric of Australian critical infrastructure operations and provide a good example of the problem.

Speaker

Dr Jordan Plotnek

Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia