Learning how to mitigate the impact of a pandemic on the logistics and transport industry through a gamification approach

Abstract

The SARS COVID 19 pandemic in the year 2020 has damaged large parts of the international economy in a way that hardly anyone could have foreseen. The disruptions of national and international supply chains in consequence of the quarantine measures established, made the situation even worse. The logistics industry was not prepared for such a crisis, but should learn from it for the future. This article takes a look at the most striking problems the international supply chains were dealing with during the crisis. It also offers possible solutions. As this will most likely not be the last great pandemic, we have to get ourselves better prepared for the future and train our current experts and those who are actually in education. Besides all the theoretical basic knowledge, we have to find ways how to train them in more practical way. This can be a game that is able to simulate the real logistics business in normal operation as well as in times of a crisis like a pandemic. Besides the problems and possible solutions, this article also models a gamification approach on top of a highly digitized logistics ecosystem, that would help to provide all kinds of logistics training in all kinds of close to reality simulations.