The conference, which has been taking place since 2006, was held entirely in person again for the first time this year after a pandemic-related break, attracting 75 participants from 12 countries. The conference was hosted by Professors Wolfgang Kersten (W-2), Thorsten Blecker (W-2), Carlos Jahn (W-12), Christian Ringle (W-9) and Christian Thies (W-EXK1). The organizational team also included Sandra Heymann (W-2), Jürgen Weigell (W-12) and Francisco Encina (W-EXK1).
Diverse program and international contributions
This year's conference theme was “Sustainable and Resilient Logistics: Navigating Towards a Greener and More Robust Future”. In addition to two plenary lectures, there were a total of 60 presentations in four parallel tracks. In his plenary lecture “The role of supply chain management in an era of ecological crises”, Prof. Andreas Wieland from the Copenhagen Business School highlighted the role of supply chains in overcoming ecological crises and showed how they are both the cause and the effect of such crises. In his presentation “Connecting the Dots: Transforming Airbus' Industrial Supply Chain for the Challenges of Tomorrow”, François Méroc from Airbus showed how the company is restructuring its industrial supply chain to be prepared for the challenges of the future.
PhD workshop for young researchers
A PhD workshop was offered for young scientists on the first day of the conference. The workshop was organized and moderated by Prof. Meike Schroeder (W-2). In their lectures, Prof. Andreas Wieland, Prof. Christian Ringle and Prof. Christian Thies provided insights into the scientific writing process and how to deal with the publication process. Another focus was on the use of AI tools in logistics research.
Networking and exchange
In addition to the main topics, the conference also offered many opportunities for networking. The Welcome Reception on Wednesday evening at the Fraunhofer CML and the conference dinner on Thursday at the Restaurant Momento di in Harburg's harbor offered a relaxed atmosphere for lively discussions.
Conclusion and outlook
The HICL 2024 was a great success and showed that the topics of sustainability, digitalization and risk management continue to be highly relevant in the logistics industry. With the valuable impulses from the lectures and discussions, we look forward to future developments in logistics and supply chain management. We would like to thank all supporters and participants and look forward to the next
