Author: Faith Heller Major: Supply Chain Management
My name is Faith Heller and I am in the Honors program for the Walton College of Business. I am a Supply Chain Management major and my thesis advisor is Christian Hofer who is in the Supply Chain Management department. I conducted my research in the Fall 2020 semester and have a job lined up in the logistics field with Expeditors after I graduate in December 2020.
I chose this as my topic because COVID-19 has hit the world like nothing we have seen before. I chose Dr. Christian Hofer as my advisor because he was one of my favorite professors at the University of Arkansas and he was involved in the Supply Chain Department. I wanted to research the Air Freight industry during COVID-19 because the supply chain became so prevalent and experienced so many challenges during this time that would forever change the way we move freight around the world. I researched how COVID-19 has affected different branches of the air freight industry including freight forwarders, commercial airlines and the movement of freight globally. Supply chain operations have been heavily impacted and new regulations and protocols have forced these airline companies to make changes within their operations to make sure they are running smoothly and efficiently. COVID-19 has created obstacles that have not been present in business before and companies within the air freight industry have had to adapt to this new normal and learn to collaborate together to solve problems that arise. Looking at each individual sector within the industry showed what needs to be improved within the air freight industry in order to combat any global pandemic or drastic event in the future that could shake up operations or increase demand for air freight globally.
Some challenges I faced with my research were that because something as big as Coronavirus hadn’t hit the world before, there was not a ton of research done on a global pandemic this big. Coronavirus also posed many challenges and issues that the global supply chain was not prepared for and companies were actively trying to combat these issues that they had never dealt with before. Coronavirus was still very new when I started my research in August before my Fall semester and there was still not a lot of research and many articles to read on my topic of the air freight industry because some problems involving the supply chain were not yet fixed. I had to dig deep and sift through articles to make sure I was getting the most recent and up to date information that was accurate and really focus on containing my research to just the air freight industry and how it is utilized in the global supply chain.
Dr. Hofer and John Cole are both 2 professors that I really looked to for guidance in doing research for my thesis as well as formatting it. They both were super helpful and engaged in my project, making sure it was done to the best of my ability and that I had credible work that was done well. I admire them as mentors and I am thankful for all the time they put into helping me. Doing this thesis really made me appreciate how much there is to learn about the supply chain process and industry. I am continuing in the logistics field starting with Expeditors International in Dallas, Texas after graduation and this project has made me even more excited to get started and continue to learn the air freight industry and how it is ever changing and developing with everything going on in the world.