03rd July 2020: First ALUROUT online meeting
"Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global supply chains - Sino-German perspectives"
On 03rd July 2020, the first ALUROUT online meeting with the topic "Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global supply chains – Sino-German perspectives" was successfully held with the support of ALUROUT partners and logistics experts from Germany and China.
In a keynote session, Prof. Dr. Michael Henke (Fraunhofer IML) outlined the devastating economic impact of the COVID-19-crisis as well as the need for redesigning global supply chains. He emphasized that the epidemic has already led to a series of crises in global supply and that enterprises need to be prepared for the possibility of another global infection wave. In order to ensure the resilience of their supply chains, Prof. Dr. Michael Henke pointed out that a successful digital transformation in the field of logistics will be particularly important for companies in both countries, China and Germany. This has become obvious in the context of the current Covid-19-pandemic. The keynote was then rounded off by an introduction into current trends and technological innovations in logistics that will play a major role in the digital transformation.
In the following expert discussion session, Prof. Dr. Dianjun Fang gave a Chinese perspective on the economic recovery process in China including the resumption of industry, as well as raised concerns about the fact of unsynchronized resumption of global supply chains. Further participating experts were Prof. Dr. Michael Schüller from HS Osnabrück, Ms. Besser from DCW and Dr. Zhang from RWTH Aachen. In an interactive discussion they were able to give the audience an introduction into the Sino-German educational cooperation, economic cooperation and academic cooperation and the corresponding challenges that arose with the pandemic respectively.
Our first ALUROUT online meeting attracted logistics experts as well as scholars from Germany and China. We would like to thank the participants for the positive feedback and are looking forward to more upcoming online events.