The purpose of this module is to bring out the reasons why organizations and governments were not prepared for the first wave of the pandemic so that a foundation can be established for focusing on restarting and rethinking operations with an eye towards avoiding similar problems in the future.

Retrospection is good to establish a foundation, but organizations have begun to restart their operations and re-engage their customers. What actions and reactions will restarting operations require/generate? How can potentially alienated customers be re-engaged? How can customer engagement be maintained if another wave of the pandemic arrives?

How can the issues that arose with the pandemic be avoided/eliminated in the future? Are current ways of thinking about supply chains appropriate, or are radical new ways of looking at the supply chain required? What are organizations doing to avoid the problems surfaced during reflection? What will all these changes end up costing and should we care? Finally, have any changes that organizations taken properly prepared them for a second wave of potential disruptions?

Rod Franklin is Adjunct Professor of Logistics and Academic Director of Executive Education at Kühne Logistics University. Professor Franklin, an engineer and operations manager by training and experience, received his Doctorate in Management from the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Professor Franklin has held management positions at Kühne + Nagel, USCO Logistics, ENTEX Information Services, Digital Equipment Corporation, and Cameron Iron Works. In addition, he has been a consultant for Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Theodore Barry & Associates and Arthur Young & Co. Professor Franklin was also a development engineer for the Saginaw Steering Gear Division of General Motors Corporation.

Franklin’s research focuses on the application of modern management techniques to the efficient and effective operation of supply chains, sustainable business models, green logistics, corporate social responsibility and cloud based supply chain management. View profile

Jan C. Fransoo is Professor of Operations Management & Logistics at Kühne Logistics University. He also serves as the University’s Dean of Research and Member of the Executive Board. In late 2020, he will join the Tilburg School of Economics and Management in the Netherlands, as a Professor of Operations and Logistics Management.

He joined KLU in 2018 following a tenure of 22 years at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, where he still holds a courtesy professorship in its School of Industrial Engineering. Fransoo holds a Master of Science (ir.) degree in Industrial Engineering and a Doctor of Philosophy (dr.) degree in Operations Management and Logistics, both from Eindhoven University of Technology.

Professor Fransoo’s research studies operations, logistics, and supply chain management decision making in the retail, chemical, food, pharmaceutical and transport industries. His current research focuses in particular on retail distribution and channel management in developing markets, on intermodal container transport, and on sustainability and social responsibility in supply chains. His recent books include Reaching 50 Million Nanostores: Retail Distribution in Emerging Megacities and Sustainable Supply Chains: A Research-Based Textbook on Operations and Strategy. View profile

Kai Hoberg is Head of Department of Operations and Technology and Professor of Supply Chain and Operations Strategy at Kühne Logistics University since November 2017. He joined the KLU as an Associate Professor in May 2012. From 2010 to 2012 he was Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management at the University of Cologne. Kai Hoberg received his PhD in 2006 from Münster University, Germany under supervision of Prof. Dr. Ulrich W. Thonemann.

Kai Hoberg’s current research topics include supply chain analytics, role of technology in supply chains, inventory modeling, and the link between operations and finance. In particular, he explores the fundamental drivers of supply chain performance and strategies applying real-world data. His research findings have been published in academic journals like Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management or European Journal of Operational Research. View profile

Dr. A. Michael Knemeyer, CTL is a Professor of Logistics at the Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University. Dr. Knemeyer received a B.S.B.A. in Business Logistics and Marketing from John Carroll University, where he was named the outstanding logistics student in his graduating class. His Ph.D. is from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he majored in Logistics, and minored in Marketing and Research Methods. His dissertation focusing on logistics outsourcing won the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) outstanding dissertation award. He has held previous faculty positions at John Carroll University, University of North Florida and West Virginia University. Dr. Knemeyer is a Research Fellow for the National Center for the Middle Market and a Research Associate for the Global Supply Chain Forum, both located at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business. His research interests include logistics outsourcing, supply chain relationships and supply chain management. Dr. Knemeyer was awarded the 2006 ISM Senior Research Fellowship, which is intended to support emerging scholars that have demonstrated exceptional academic productivity in research and teaching.

His work has been accepted for publication in leading journals, he has received various awards for his research, including the 2013 Bernard J. LaLonde Award from the Journal of Business Logistics. Dr. Knemeyer teaches a variety of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral level courses at the Fisher College of Business. 

Mikaella Polyviou is an assistant professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. Dr. Polyviou’s research focuses on supply chain disruptions. She studies the role of individuals and the enterprise in improving a firm’s resilience. At the individual level, she explores how managers react to supply disruptions and make sourcing decisions after a disruption. At the enterprise level, she examines the firm capabilities and supply chain strategies that help mitigate the occurrence and impact of disruptions.

Dr. Polyviou joined W. P. Carey in 2016. Since then, she has been teaching Strategic Procurement in the full-time, professional, and online MBA programs. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Cyprus, and Masters and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. She has been a Fulbrighter twice.

Maximilian Schreiter is an assistant professor at the Chair of M&A in Small- and Medium-Sized Entities at the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management. His research focuses on management decisions under uncertainty in the sphere of corporate finance. For instance, he models the risk of default due to illiquidity or indebtedness based on stochastic approaches to find optimal investment or financing decisions.

Dr. Schreiter rejoined HHL in 2019 after another episode in strategy consulting at Roland Berger where he also worked in the field of Consumer Goods & Retail before doing his Ph.D. During his time in consulting, he covered projects spanning from end-to-end supply chain optimization over corporate restructuring and marketing efficiency towards long-term investment strategies in DACH, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Western Africa. At HHL, he teaches the topics of financial management, corporate valuation, risk management and corporate finance in the MSc, MBA and Executive programs.