Saskia Sardesai

• Doctor of Business Administration
• Senior Researcher at Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many medical device manufacturers faced a significant and unexpected increase in demand. To handle this sudden spike in demand, a ramp-up of production and inbound material flow had to be organized. At the same time, the pandemic caused issues in the supply of materials for their medical products. Due to disruptions in...

Unpredictable disruptions of the supply chain, as they have been caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, require a rapid adaptation of the supply chain, i.e., the reconfiguration of processes and structures to re-establish resilience and maintain viability. Promising reconfigurations need to be identified and assessed regarding anticipatable supply chain...

In the wake of technological innovation, supply chain transparency has become a concrete avenue for long-awaited improvements to supply chain processes and practices. Transparency is of particular interest to Supply Chain Finance; however, it is yet empirically unknown whether and how benefits would materialise. Being at the interface of finance an...

This chapter presents a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for supply chain and it is the result of an intensive work jointly performed involving a wide network of stakeholders from discrete manufacturing, process industry and logistics sector to put forward a vision to strengthen European Supply Chains for 169 170 R. Fornasiero et al. the ne...

This book explores supply chains strategies to help companies face challenges such as societal emergency, digitalization, climate changes and scarcity of resources. The book identifies industrial scenarios for the next decade based on the analysis of trends at social, economic, environmental technological and political level, and examines how they...

Companies operate in a macro-environment that is changing considerably due to large, transformative global forces namely megatrends and trends. The wave of these megatrends and trends generates new prospects as well as challenges for the future of supply chains. This chapter provides a review of 23 major megatrends and 72 trends identified in multi...

Trends and future developments make it necessary to discuss the future, but it is their bundling that forms a future scenario. This chapter describes six identified and verified macro-scenarios for future industry specific settings, which are shaped by various socioeconomic , political, technological and environmental future developments. The descr...

Digital technologies have gained ground among companies, researchers and policy makers in recent years due to their growing relevance to current and future supply chains. Technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, autonomous transport systems, data science, and additive manufacturing are gradually becoming part of people’s and companie...

The future is influenced by various possible developments and is hence difficult to predict. Still, each company or institution bases its vision and strategic progress on certain assumptions for the future. In order to prepare for various developments of the future, it is reasonable to consider different possible scenarios while building a future v...

The purpose of supply chain design is to ensure an efficient and effective logistics network. Within supply chain design, simulation and optimization tools are used in combination to improve design scenarios from different angles. Nowadays, sustainability becomes an increasingly important criterion for the evaluation of these design scenarios. To i...

Purpose: This paper aims to give an overview about the current state of research in the field of machine learning methods in demand planning. A cross-industry analysis for current machine learning approaches within the field of demand planning provides a decision-making support for the manufacturing industry. Methodology: Based on a literature rese...

Purpose: In recent years, a number of practical logistic applications of machine learning (ML) have emerged, especially in Supply Chain Management (SCM). By linking applied ML methods to the SCM task model, the paper indicates the current applications in SCM and visualises potential research gaps. Methodology: Relevant papers with applications of M...

Megatrends are large, transformative global forces of change e.g. social, technological that may affect the future of multiple industries. Due to their importance companies across different industries try to identify, analyse, and act on megatrends to secure a sustainable future; thus, these megatrends are used as a base in their strategic work wit...

In a volatile environment, flexibility can be seen as an important ability to respond to changing conditions. The paper focuses on logistics flexibility in global supply chains and provides a conceptual framework for a simulation-based management. Therefore, relevant requirements and potentials of logistics flexibility are identified and parameteri...

In a volatile environment, flexibility can be seen as an important ability to respond to changing conditions. The paper focuses on logistics flexibility in global supply chains and provides a conceptual framework for a simulation-based management. Therefore, relevant requirements and potentials of logistics flexibility are identified and parameteri...

This paper presents a gray box model of a photo- voltaic (PV) cell working under low illuminance artificial indoor lighting conditions. A mathematical model of PV cells with single and two diode configuration is used. Additionally a platform for the measurement of the PV cells within the indoor environment is presented. An optimization problem is f...

The paper presents a concept, which combines established analytical approaches of inventory and transport management with a simulation-based approach in order to increase robustness within a dynamic environment. The approach supports the selection of appropriate measures to counteract demand fluctuations and disturbances. In addition, it operationa...