The EdTech Revolution
in Higher Education

Undergraduate and postgraduate education related to logistics and supply chain management is generally not different between industrialized and developing or emerging countries. The LSCM concepts remain the same, but the list of priorities, physical restrictions caused by poor infrastructure, and a lower degree of technological application pose a challenge in adapting the educational curricula at university level. Additional to the insights about the general teaching challenges in developing countries (e.g. in Sub-Saharan Africa), the use of gaming approaches, remote education, and case study development will be discussed. During times of COVID-19, and potential unrest such as in Ethiopia, capacity building in higher education is even more challenging and requires extra layers of planning, time, and understanding for the local context.

Andre Kreie (MSc, PhD) is Director Global Logistics Education with the Kühne Foundation based in Schindellegi, Switzerland, and also works as Vice Dean at the German Foreign Trade and Logistics Academy (DAV) in Bremen, Germany. He is a Business Economist and holds a PhD and Masters in Logistics and Supply Chain Management from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Dr Kreie also completed a professional multi-year traineeship with a logistics company to understand and apply all operational procedures required in sea-, air-, and land-transportation. Prior to joining the Kühne Foundation, Dr Kreie gained further work experience in the supply chain business with a globally operating logistics service provider and worked as project manager for logistics design and operations with a leading European DIY-retailer. Dr Kreie has been teaching intensively in business programs at different universities and further education institutions and his research interest is on organizational and network learning, and supply chain risk management to enable the adaptations of logistical systems to a changing environment. Dr Kreie won the International Emerald/EFDM Outstanding Doctoral Research Award for his PhD thesis on “The Adaptation of Supply Chains to Climate Change”. Present activities for the Kühne-Foundation involve global projects in advanced and higher education in logistics with a particular focus on university capacity building in logistics and supply chain management, i.e. Bachelor, Master, and PhD-Degree programs in LSCM. Further, Dr. Kreie leads the logistics training unit which addresses operational transportation topics as well as leadership and strategic elements for young professionals and more experienced management. The Kühne Foundation Global Logistics Education Program currently targets the regions Europe, East-and West-Africa, Central Asia, and South-East Asia.  

Björn Claes is Senior Lecturer in Operations Management at The Open University Business School in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. His research interests are related to the behavioral aspects in operations and supply chain management and to business processes in general. His work has been published in journals such as Human Resource Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Prometheus, Supply Chain Forum, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, among others. He regularly teaches courses (including The Fresh Connection) at Kedge Business School in France, at IE Business School in Spain, and at Cranfield School of Management in the UK.

Supply Chain Finance (SCF) solutions are often presented as win-win-win instruments for the involved buyers, suppliers and financial service providers. However, the perspective from the parties initiating the SCF solutions receives most attention, which are usually the buyers and financial service providers. Often payment term extensions are used when introducing SCF, and therefore suppliers need to carefully assess these offers. In this presentation the perspective of all involved parties, before, during and after adoption, is given. It will give insights for suppliers on how to assess SCF offers, and for buyers and banks on how to introduce SCF and communicate with suppliers. The SCF instruments discussed will be Reverse Factoring and Inventory Financing.

Christiaan de Goeij is a project manager and researcher in the field of Supply Chain Finance at the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands, and Politecnico di Milano in Italy. He started his career as a policy advisor in Economic Affairs and worked at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce and the Province of South Holland. After that he became a researcher and lecturer at Utrecht University and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in the field of Airport/Seaport Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

At Windesheim he is teaching supply chain courses using business simulation gaming and managing large-scale research projects on Supply Chain Finance with corporates, SMEs and industry associations in The Netherlands. Furthermore, he is writing project proposals for grants. In 2017 he won the RAAK-award for best applied research project in The Netherlands.

Dr. Christopher A. Boone serves as an Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management in the Department of Marketing, Quantitative Analysis & Business Law at Mississippi State University. Professor Boone has extensive experience teaching supply chain courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels and has received awards for teaching excellence at multiple universities. Professor Boone is also an award-winning scholar. His primary research interest is supply chain strategy and decision making. Topical themes of his research include studies on supply chain resiliency, service parts management, logistics service quality, product recalls, digital transformation, data quality, and supply chain analytics. Prior to entering academia, Professor Boone served 22 years in the United States Air Force. During his military career he served in a variety of logistics and transportation related assignments and commanded both an operational and combat logistics squadron.

Corine van der Sloot is an experiential learning, and Supply Chain Management professional, with over 20 years of business experience. She has held positions in different roles in multinationals (Philips), SME’s, her privately owned company, and was managing partner of a start-up company. At Inchainge Corine is Global Director of Education, as well as Senior Trainer. Corine is connected with the global leading universities in Supply Chain Management, and working on further business development of the academic market for the business simulation games that Inchainge has developed. Corine has an APICS certification and has finished different modules of the MIT EDX Supply Chain Management course program. She is an entrepreneur, always looking for opportunities, signaling those opportunities, and she dares to take risks if it serves a good purpose. Corine is board member of CSCMP Benelux RT, and is the Dutch representative of BVL (German SCM and Logistics Association) in the Netherlands. In her private live Corine is married, has two children, and is active as a running trainer.

Dmitrii Gavrilov is an author and presenter of operational management programs, APICS CPIM, CSCP, LTD, SCORP, APICS Master Instructor.

In this session, you will learn in detail what the application of the Integrated Learning Approach could look like for a Circular Economy course with The Blue Connection integrated into it. Which learning methods to apply, which sequence of activities to follow, how to engage students and which assignments to use for the grading? By attending, you will find answers to all of these questions, and more…

Ed Weenk MSc PDEng is an experienced lecturer, corporate advisor and workshop and training facilitator. His professional passions are sustainable operations and supply chain, managers and management, projects and project management, train¬ing and teaching, and business simulations and experiential learning.

He has extensive practical experience since the mid-1990s in managing interna¬tional logistics and distribution projects at strategic and operational level and is a strong believer in the principles of experiential learning. Alongside his practice as an independent professional, he is delivery partner and authorized trainer in the Inchainge business simulations of the Netherlands and the Palatine Group in New York.

Ed collaborates as a Senior Associate Professor at business schools such as EADA Barcelona (Spain), Maastricht School of Management (the Netherlands), TIAS School for Business and Society (the Netherlands), Antwerp Management School (Belgium), WU Wien Executive Academy (Austria), Rotterdam School of Management (the Netherlands) and Centrum Graduate School of Business (Lima, Peru). His specialization is on the topics of operations and supply chain management, circular economy, project management, and intra- and entrepreneurship.

Ed has previously written a management book, The Perfect Pass: What the manager can learn from the football trainer, published in English, Spanish and Dutch, about the importance of seeing the big picture, having good internal and external alignment and achieving coherence at all levels. In 2019 his second book was published, titled Mastering the Supply Chain: Principles, practice and real-life applications, now available in English and Dutch. Similar to Mastering the Circular Economy, this book combines relevant theory and frameworks with practical appli¬cation through a business simulation.

Egge Haak (57) started his career with several Supply Chain management positions in the industry. Egge made the transition to business consultancy in 1996. In 2001 he started Involvation, a mid sized consulting company in Supply Chain Management. As a partner he is involved in a large number of supply chain improvement projects. In 2010 he founded Inchainge, the company that drives several business (learning) simulations (like The Fresh Connection, The Cool Connection and The Blue Connection) on a global level.

He is the entrepreneurial type, building new things form scratch and working on new innovative ideas. Egge likes the motto of Maria Andretti (former F1 driver) : “ when everything is under control, you are driving too slow”

Egge likes sports like sailing, skiing, tennis and hockey.

Egge has a three kids (Karianne – 16, Minke – 19, Timo – 20) He lives in a small village in Mid-East of The Netherlands, near the woods.

Dr. Felisa Preciado Higgins is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education and a Clinical Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Smeal College of Business. Dr. P, as many have come to know her, describes herself as a woman on a mission to change the world, one student at a time.

Dr. Higgins served as a 2016-2017 Administrative Fellow for the Office of the Vice President for Commonwealth Campuses prior to assuming her role as Associate Dean. She was awarded the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2015, and the Smeal College of Business Fred Brand Jr. Award for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in 2014.

She holds a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Florida State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Florida A&M University. Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Preciado worked for Kimberly-Clark Corporation (KCC), where she was responsible for implementing process improvement solutions and demand planning methods throughout Latin America. Her previous work experience also includes the automotive and apparel industries.

Professor at Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau

Even before I knew it I took a huge interest in how supply chains, and value chains worked. As a kid I could be glued to a television screen on Wednesday afternoons, to watch short movies about how things were made.

This has resulted in me being a trainer and educator in managing supply chains and value chains. I hugely enjoy to train, educate and learn from others at the same time. An important part of my role is consulting Learning and Development officers. I have the privilege to support them in developing and rolling out learning programs, so they can deliver desired learning outcomes. What I am passionate about is Experiential Learning, since it is so powerful and fulfilling at the same time. For learners as well as for trainers and educators.

In the last 15+ years I have accumulated thousands of training “flight hours” in multiple industries both at home and abroad. I have extensive experience with face-to-face delivery, online delivery and blended learning formats. A significant part of my training sessions I spend on training other trainers.

Dr. Hans van der Drift is partner at Involvation, a company that specialises in Supply Chain Management and optimisation. Hans is responsible for Involvation’s S&OP-IBP practice and has been involved in numerous consulting and training assignments in many different industries.

Before joining Involvation in 2008, Hans worked 15 years at Unilever, where he started as an internal supply chain consultant and subsequently became responsible for the supply chain of Iglo and later Lever Fabergé. In the latter job, he was the driving force behind the MCC (Manufacturers Consolidation Centre), the joint distribution centre of Lever Fabergé and Kimberly-Clark. This centre was awarded several national logistics prizes, because of its innovative and environmentally friendly design. During his last four years at Unilever, Hans worked as Plan Program Director for Europe. During his years at Unilever and Involvation, he built up a broad experience in supply chain optimisation and management, including S&OP, demand and supply planning and distribution.

Hans holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Delft University of Technology.

Prof. Igor Lopes is an Industrial Engineer from the Technological University of Havana, he received a PhD in Technical Sciences focusing in Logistics and Supply Chain (2013), is active in Teaching, Research and Business Consulting. He has accumulated more than fifteen years of experience as a teacher at Universities in Cuba and Latin America, and ten years of experience in joint work with Universities Worldwide, specially in Germany. Igor is also an Education Associate of Inchainge supporting universities in Latin America to utilize The Fresh Connection, The Cool Connection and The Blue Connection in their classrooms.

Supply chains are increasingly complex: in such an increasingly uncertain world, supply chain risk is often nested within complex networks composed of multiple tiers of interconnecting companies, tangled in a web of connections spanning geographies, tiers and industries. That’s why some corporates are moving from managing their immediate suppliers to look into their ‘Nexus’ suppliers: critical or strategic suppliers that sit beyond the first tier, with whom a corporate doesn’t have a direct commercial relationship, but that can ‘make or break’ a supply chain. In this session we will go through the basics of the Nexus supplier concept, see a practical application and discuss why the concept is critical for corporates and why one might want to consider including it in our programmes for students approaching supply chain management.

Luca M. Gelsomino, PhD, is a senior researcher at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, in The Netherlands, as well as the Academic Director of the Supply Chain Finance Community. Within the SCF Community he is in charge of promoting academic collaboration in Europe and in the rest of the world, as well as oversee collaborative research projects within the business school parts of the Community. As researcher, his interests lie in the study of Supply Chain Finance, the application of innovative information technologies (such as Blockchain and Internet of Things) to supply chains and the study of the financial performance of supply chains. He also teaches International Business and Managerial Accounting at the Windesheim Honours College. He got his PhD with merit at the School of Management, Politecnico di Milano, in Italy, with a thesis titled: “Measuring the financial performance of a supply chain for the optimal adoption of Supply Chain Finance solutions”.

Maryse Chappin is an assistant professor in Innovation Studies with a research focus on sustainable innovation, eco-innovation, collaboration and networks, and crowdsourcing

Michiel Steeman was selected in 2013 as the inaugural holder of the Supply Chain Finance Professorship at the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. He is also the founder and chairman of the Supply Chain Finance Community that has already brought together over 30 leading business schools from more than 20 countries around the world who actively collaborate with companies, banks and governments in the developing field of Supply Chain Finance.

Michiel joined Nyenrode early 2012 to develop research and development projects in the area of Supply Chain Finance. Several research consortia were formed in which corporates, banks, consultancies, and governments were brought together. In 2020 Michiel concluded his PhD at Nyenrode and published his ‘Exploratory Study on Supply Chain Finance Schemes’.

In 2012 he joined Inchainge where he launched The Cool Connection, a business simulation and training tool that bridges the physical and financial supply chain by bringing together finance, sales, procurement and supply chain in a virtual decision making environment.

From 2009 to 2012 Michiel was elected into the Executive Committee of Factors Chain International, a worldwide organization with more than 300 member in over 65 countries. He holds a Master’s degree in Financial Economics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

His working experience includes a variety of roles for Deutsche, NIB Capital, NMB-Heller such as relationship management, risk management and marketing. In his last role at ING he was member of the board and responsible for product development and strategy for leasing and factoring with operations in 14 countries and almost 3000 employees.

Nick Vyas is the Academic/Executive Director and Co-founder of the Center for Global Supply Chain Management (GSCM) at the University of Southern California. As Associate Professor of Clinical Data Sciences and Operations, Nick teaches Lean Six Sigma, Supply Chain Finance, and Emerging Technologies. Previously Vyas managed global operations for Duty Free International, Sears, Federated Stores, and Toys R Us.

Noah Schaul is a Business Development Manager. He is originally from Luxemburg, lived in the Netherlands for 6 years, and currently lives in Barcelona, Spain. It was in the Netherlands where his studies and professional career started and are now still developing, as a business development manager at Inchainge. He is one of Inchainge’s master trainers for the circular business game The Blue Connection and a contributor to the textbook Mastering the Circular Economy. Very passionate about everything related to circularity, Noah is developing applied circular learning programs and inspiring companies to go circular in The Netherlands and beyond!

For the past few years (2017 to date) Oliver J. Ntenje has been involved in the development of the new International Business program of the International Business School. He has been involved in the development of the complete 4-year program.

From his role as program lead, member of both the curriculum committee and the assessment committee) he has worked tirelessly with his colleagues and management to come up with a fantastic program.

Rozanne Henzen holds an MSc in Strategic Communication Sciences from the University of Antwerp, and received a Fellowship at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship during her studies, both focusing on consumer behaviour and circularity for the textile industry.

Currently, Rozanne is researcher and innovation consultant within the Expertise Centre for Sustainable Transformation at Antwerp Management School (AMS). Her research and consultancy services involve research for several national and international research projects within the field of sustainable transformation.

She manages the AMS Corporate Leadership Groups, whereby companies jointly commit to public annual actions to promote the circular or well-being economy. As part of her work for AMS she gives Circular Economy 101 lectures and is part of the Global Leadership Skills faculty team.

Rozanne was previously a member of the Dutch National Think Tank focusing on Accelerating the Transition to a Circular Economy and conducted research on individual sustainability leadership.

In 2020 her first book was published for the Dutch market, titled De kleine Circulaire economie for Dummies, being the first official For Dummies book on a circular economy with a clear and thorough explanation, and tips to contribute to a fully circular Netherlands. She is currently being recognized for her sustainability efforts as one of the Sustainable Young 100 of 2020 in the Netherlands. In her spare time, she tries to make the complexity of a circular economy and other sustainability related topics accessible for everyone through her Instagram (@reduce.reuse.rznn). In doing so, she hopes that people will see the transition to a circular economy as an adventure, instead of a restriction.

President of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals CSCMP´s Colombian RT. Country Representative for Colombia at Inchainge – Advanced Business Simulation.

Magister in Advanced Engineering of Production, Logistics and Supply Chain, with broad experience of leading Logistics Procesess, Supply Chain Network Design SCND, Planning Process (S&OP/IBP) and Supply Chain Execution. Oriented to increase levels of global productivity, sustainability, profitability and efficiency for multiple companies across diverse industries such as Automotive, FMCG, Oil & Gas and Packaging. Moreover, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and project management using PMI methodology.

Teamwork and communication skills. Expertise in supply chain optimization, logistics management and continuous improvement processes in productive environments. Global mind set, abroad experience, transformational leadership, strategic thinking, goal-oriented, decision making skills and the ability to work with cross-functional and multi-cultural teams.

Deep-Tier-Supply-Chain-Finance is a new financing concept applicable in tightly organized Supply Chains. The idea is that, within a Supply Chain, every value-added step is immediately paid for as soon as the goods are accepted by the “next-in-line” participant in the chain. The goods flow and the flow of funds thus become tightly  coupled. This not only results in efficiencies in finance related costs, but also in a far reaching transparency throughout the entire chain.

Prof. Dr. Ir. Pieter Klapwijk, born in Amsterdam, grew up in Brussels. He is currently active as one of the co-founders of the startup AgOS, which combines blockchain with Supply Chain Finance for agricultural supply chains. He is also emeritus professor in Supply Chain Management Economics and Supply Chain Finance at Nyenrode Business University. He is also a director and co-founder of the Supply Chain Finance Community and an independent consultant in this field.