Supply Chain Courses

An introduction to integrated supply chain management. Core capabilities in plan, source, make, deliver, service/customer management, new product design & launch, strategy, governance, project management, performance management, technology enablement, and supply chain finance are explored to provide students with a comprehensive cross-functional view of demand-driven value networks.

The focus of the course will be to learn and integrate the following topics:

• Demand-Driven Supply Chain & Competition
• Customer Value, Customer Fulfillment & Service, and Customer Segmentation
• SC Analytics & Performance Measurement / Finance
• PLAN: Balancing Supply & Demand:
  • Forecasting / Demand Management
  • Inventory / Capacity / Operations Management
  • Sales & Operations Planning / Integrated Business Planning
  • Supply Chain Planning for New Product Introduction
• MAKE: Manufacturing, Service, Operations, and Process Management
• SOURCE: Sourcing, Procurement, & Supply Management
• DELIVER: Logistics, Distribution, and Transportation Management
• Agile & Responsive Supply Chains
• Supply Chain Technologies and Innovations
• International & Global Supply Chain Management
• Supply Chain Risk & Sustainability

Prerequisite: ACCT 2013 and WCOB 1033 each with a grade of C or better.

Supply Chain Planning drives collaboration across teams that create and/or are users of inventory and forecasting management decisions. These teams cut across R&D, NPD, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, sales, customer service, sourcing, finance, and numerous governance activities.

Emphasis on aligning strategy, planning, and execution of forecasting and inventory into demand management, factory scheduling, distribution and supply planning, production capacity planning, sales & operations planning, integrated business planning, and enabling planning technologies.

In this course, coverage of the inventory specifically focuses on inventory control methods for stochastic demand and lead times. Besides a review of the associated theoretical bases, the implementation of such policies in Excel is a central component of the course, along with exposure to planning using the top digital planning technologies.

Forecasting topics covered in this course include a review of a variety of forecasting techniques and forecast error measurement. Moreover, the linkage between forecasting and inventory control is discussed within the overall sales and operations planning (S&OP) process.

As with inventory control, students will learn how to implement various forecasting techniques in Excel.

Prerequisite: ((ECON 2013 and ECON 2023) or ECON 2143) and SCMT 2103 with a grade of C or better.

This course covers the critical sourcing and procurement processes that support strategic sourcing, source to pay, and supplier relationship management. It covers innovative efforts to grow sourcing contribution to demand-driven supply chain integration, including supply chain finance, environmental and social sustainability, technology, and risk management.

Projects include industry-based data-intense analytics, visualization, and decision-making using the latest supply chain technologies and software. Emphasis is on strategic and tactical integration of sourcing/procurement with supply chain planning, manufacturing and production, logistics, and new product development and launch.

Prerequisite: ((ECON 2013 and ECON 2023) or ECON 2143) and SCMT 2103 with a grade of C or better.)

Manufacturing and service fundamental concepts, techniques, and tools for managing manufacturing production and improving business processes across the supply chain in both manufacturing and service contexts

Topics include the history of manufacturing systems, design of different manufacturing, planning and control problems encountered in manufacturing, factory measurements and dynamics, variability, product-process portfolio matrix, push and pull production systems, capacity management, production execution technologies, and differences and similarities in manufacturing and service operations..

Student industry-based projects involve gaining the vision, deeply understanding the current situation by collecting qualitative and quantitative data, experimenting towards the challenge through tools and techniques from operations management, and practicing change management principles.

Philosophies, principles, approaches, and techniques students will learn and experience in this course include lean, total quality management, theory of constraints, practical scientific thinking, and Toyota kata.

Prerequisite: ((ECON 2013 and ECON 2023) or ECON 2143) and SCMT 2103 with a grade of C or better.)

The course covers and applies advanced principles, techniques, and tools for managing manufacturing production. Working closely with local manufacturing plants, students dive into Factory Physics and its application within the four walls of the manufacturing firm and its implications across the broader supply chain.

Emphasis is given both to the application of various production processes within manufacturing and to quantitative analysis of problems arising in the management of operations. Topics include historical manufacturing system and evolution to modern manufacturing systems, flexible manufacturing systems, additive manufacturing, disruptive innovation in manufacturing, IoT in manufacturing, digital manufacturing, facility and work design, operations scheduling and sequencing, waiting and queues, capacity pooling, production line management, manufacturing planning systems, and project management in manufacturing settings.

Students will learn to identify the components of process and flow variability, how to measure these, and how to use models to predict their influence on manufacturing system performance. Students will learn the key parameters and performance measures of manufacturing systems.

Prerequisite: SCMT 3663. MAKE: Supply Chain Operations & Process Improvement.

Management of functional delivery and customer service capabilities in demand-driven value networks. Emphases on aligning the delivery and return interfaces with enabling capabilities such as governance, performance management, analytics, and technology enablement.

It covers domestic and international transportation modes, costing and pricing, negotiations, lane/network analyses, transportation government regulations and public policies, warehouse/distribution center operations, design, and functionality, receiving, stocking & restocking, picking, packaging, and packing, order fulfillment, and reverse logistics and value-added remanufacturing services to improve economic, environmental, and social triple-bottom line performance.

Live industry applied projects involve advanced Excel, Access, Power BI, along with commonly used routing & scheduling, online freight-matching tools, and distribution center management software tools.

Students will be exposed to common logistics management systems, such as JDA, Oracle, and SAP.

Prerequisite: ((ECON 2013 and ECON 2023) or ECON 2143) and SCMT 2103 with a grade of C or better.

Management of supply chain fulfillment service quality, relationships, and customer segmentation in demand-driven value networks to provide customer experiences that are seamless. An increasing emphasis is on understanding and utilizing customer-enabling technological advancements, particularly artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, digital twins, and blockchain to design and execute customer-centric supply chains.

Students will learn how to leverage supply chain expertise to enhance customer experience strategy and the corresponding enabling digital technologies to empower customer-facing personnel. Analyzing customer data from industry partners, students apply data analytics and data visualization to assess and recommend improvements that are applicable across functional interfaces.

These applied projects focus on performance measurement and integration opportunities for boundary spanning supply chain professionals with emphasis on co-creation of value with the customer and the measurement, improvement and personalization of the many aspects of the customer experience.

Prerequisite: SCMT 3613.

Applies principles and tools of project management to supply chain industry projects in the new product development launch process to ensure alignment with supply chain processes.

Industry-connected experiential learning in collaborative team settings facilitate new product development and launch solutions to demand-driven value network problems. Industry partners provide student teams with projects to manage that involve the design and launch of new products, including product design for manufacturing, distribution, and packaging, supply chain planning for new product introductions with short or long product life cycles, integration with sales & operations planning processes, product pipeline management, supply adaptability to demand volatility, and financial justification, operational feasibility, costing, quality, and service measurement of new product introductions.

Prerequisite: (ECON 2013 and ECON 2023) or ECON 2143.

Evaluate and select appropriate supply chain strategies and change management approaches for business situations. This capstone course leverages plan, source, make, deliver, customer service, and new product development capabilities to meet strategic and financial goals in demand-driven value networks.

Students will learn about supply chain management principles through readings, discussion, and experiential learning activities. Multiple team projects come directly from industry will be used to enable students to apply knowledge and skills acquired throughout the integrated supply chain management program.

Analytical problem solving will be required and team members will need to discuss potential solutions and make recommendations to external stakeholders.

After completing the course, students should be able to assess a firm and develop an appropriate supply chain strategy, and evaluate, select, and utilize capabilities that reduce supply or demand uncertainty.

Prerequisite: SCMT 3443 and SCMT 3613 and SCMT3623.

Integrates the strategic directives and successful execution by using supply chain performance management and analytics into storytelling to drive supply chains from end-to-end. Examines and applies data analytics and visualization tools to better manage conflicting supply chain objectives and trade-offs to drive toward integrated supply chain metrics.

Students learn to assess supply chain decisions against fundamental financial, accounting, behavioral, strategic, and sustainability metrics of the business. They also learn the language and techniques of business analytics that support making solid, information-based decisions to align with these supply chain metrics.

Modern supply chains are data-driven, so managers have to understand the different classes of analytics (descriptive, predictive, and discovery) that lead to prescriptive actions. Students need to become fluent in the languages of tools such as Excel, Power BI, Tableau, SQL, and Generative Artificial Intelligence models (LLMs, etc.). To achieve proficiency in these data-driven analysis and visualization tools, the students apply what they learn in the class to three supply chain projects that forces students to manage the trade-offs across supply chain planning, new product introduction, sourcing and procurement, manufacturing production, and delivery activities.

This course addresses the question of how to make the “best” supply chain decisions that result in the optimum operational and financial results. This course examines the supply chain value proposition by understanding and applying the goals of maximizing operating income and optimizing capital efficiency and the larger financial metric of Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

Supply chain decisions, activities and investments affect the financial results of the business organization.

It is essential that the supply chain professional has an understanding of how supply chain performance is reflected in financial reporting, both internally (within the company) and externally (to outside parties such as investors and creditors, and importantly ESG).

Prerequisite: SCMT 3443.

Technology enablement through prescriptive and descriptive analytics in digital and physical supply chains. Bridges the digital and analytical literacy gap in supply chains through analytics and data storytelling, providing students with a robust foundation in the digitalization of supply chain management and spotlighting the collaboration between human acumen and machine precision.

Students will develop insights into synchronized planning, augmented and automated decision-making, and leveraging digital capabilities such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things. Students will gain practical insights into augmenting supply chain processes, addressing real-time decision execution, and applying these technologies to improve supply chain outcomes.

The course offers a roadmap for digital transformation, aiming to align and automate supply chain planning workflows, enhance data accuracy, and detail decision-making. Students will pilot new enhancements in digital supply chain processes, preparing them to evaluate and invest in emerging technologies, fostering a competitive edge in their professional careers.

In the dynamic field of supply chain management, analytics alone doesn't suffice; the decisive step lies in catalyzing action from insights. This course, steeped in data literacy and analytics, emphasizes the transformation of intricate data constructs and analytic models into compelling business value. Utilizing advanced supply chain prescriptive and descriptive analytics tools, including simulation, optimization, and forecasting, alongside coding in R and Python and applying Generative Artificial Intelligence models (LLMs, etc.), students will learn to bridge the gap from analytics to implementation.

Hands-on learning with industry data will refine students' capabilities in creating persuasive visualizations and strategies that guide decision-makers from analysis to informed action, emphasizing the importance of cultural readiness and talent in deploying analytics insights effectively.

Applies principles and tools of project management to supply chain industry projects for innovation and technology enablement in manufacturing and service operations, sourcing and procurement, logistics, distribution and customer fulfillment, new product introduction and launch, and integrated supply chain planning processes within and across companies.

Working closely with industry partners, experiential learning in collaborative team settings facilitate development of innovative technology solutions to demand-driven value network problems. Students will learn how to collaborate with IT professionals to align the digital global business with the digital supply chain.

Students will learn to examine how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, digital twins, robotics, and blockchain will affect their business, analyze and present the business case of such technologies, and decide where and how to invest.

This course focuses on supply chain network design and the underlying strategies needed to manage a supply chain as business conditions change and evolve.

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with design thinking skills that they can employ to reach design solutions that recognize constraints and tradeoffs. The course is a combination of lecture and supply chain optimization case studies (planning, network, new product introduction, manufacturing, logistics, sourcing)using data from industry partners. Students will be able to explain the concepts of supply chain strategy and design, understand design thinking, application of constraints and identifying resultant trade-offs, understand basic design: process(scope, data, model, analysis, decide) and understand key metricssuch as supply chain network, finance, operations, sustainability, risk, and be able to utilize supply chain design software (Llamasoft).

This class is designed to give students an internship opportunity to combine their formal academic preparation with an exposure to the supply chain profession. Prerequisite: Department consent, completed the pre-business core, already obtained at least 60 hours of credit, and have completed SCMT 2103 with a grade of C or better. The Supply Chain Internship Program is an academic program that requires students to gain degree-related experience prior to graduation.

It is a planned, progressive educational strategy in which the supply chain knowledge gained is equal to or greater than the knowledge gained in a traditional classroom setting. In additional to the educational experience, many internships subsequently result in full-time offers from the internship provider.The Supply Chain Department considers your internship to be an integral part of your overall University Experience.

As a result, you will also be expected to share insights from your internship to future students.

Participating students earn 3 academic credit hours for their internship program experience. After completing an approved internship, student outcomes should include:

1. An enhanced and/or expanded knowledge of a particular industry or area of supply chain management practice.
2. Awareness and development of specific employer-valued skills and workplace behaviors.
3. An ability to apply prior coursework content to actual industry problems.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues can carry significant supply chain challenges, risks, and opportunities. This course focuses on the relationship between sustainability and supply chain planning, sourcing, manufacturing and service operations, and logistics.

Topics may include values-based leadership; globalizing social and environmental sustainability; diversity, inclusion, and ethics across the supply chain; and voluntary product standards and governance, stakeholder engagement, reverse logistics, humanitarian logistics, ethical sourcing, transparency, innovation, resource scarcity, waste reduction, carbon emissions, and human rights across the extended supply network.

This course explores how organizations in the three sectors of society work together in value creation by addressing social and environmental problems manifest in global supply chains. Focusing on business and nonprofit organizations, we investigate the forces that bring about and influence these collaborations from practical and theoretical perspectives.

Prerequisite: Junior Standing.

Exploring the strategic necessity of resilience within demand-driven value networks, this course equips students with the understanding to avoid, absorb, and recover from disruptions. It addresses a risk-balanced approach to product development, supply chain strategy, and network design. Students will learn to create robust supply chains capable of greater operational agility by studying supply chain resilience — a deliberate strategy to fortify an organization’s ability to manage significant disruptions.

This course examines the resilience in the design of products, supply chain strategies, and networks, highlighting its complementarity to agility — the ability to sense and respond to changes in demand or supply quickly and reliably without compromising cost or quality.

Students will appreciate how structural investments in resilience foster operational agility by engaging in the practical application of these concepts through case studies, classroom discussions, and project-based learning, emphasizing the assessment of various stakeholder roles and decisions in disrupted supply chain scenarios. Upon completion, students will emerge capable of crafting resilient supply chain frameworks, strategically assessing risks, and leading with agility amidst market volatility.

Prerequisite: SCMT 2103 with a grade of C or better.

Supply chain management is the integration of key business processes from end-user through suppliers. This course focuses on the business fundamentals and core processes that must be linked throughout the global supply chain to ensure the effective development and delivery of products and services that satisfy customers.

Core capabilities in plan, source, make, deliver, service/customer management, new product design & launch, strategy, governance, project management, performance management, technology enablement, and supply chain finance are explored to provide professionals with a comprehensive cross-functional view of demand-driven value networks.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course focuses on ‘plan’ in the plan, source, make, deliver framework. It examines the integrated planning and management of supply chain activities including, notably, demand forecasting and replenishment within sales & operations planning.

In addition to modeling related decisions both in within-firm and supply chain contexts, strategic issues related to interfirm coordination and collaboration will be discussed.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course focuses on ‘source’ in the plan, source, make, deliver framework. In the global supply chain, sourcing and procurement plays a critical role in ensuring supply, growing margins and contributing to reliable delivery to customers.

This course covers the core sourcing and procurement processes of strategic sourcing and supplier relationship management and takes a leadership approach to those covering topics such as change management and business alignment issues.

It furthers learning by considering how sourcing and procurement process and techniques can support progress in hot topic areas and current challenges in the global supply chain, including digitization, supplier enabled innovation for growth, sustainability and growing resilience in the supply chain.

Using hands-on projects and class discussions based on case studies and current articles, students will explore how to incorporate and implement best practices and tools covered in the course.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course focuses on ‘make’ in the plan, source, make, deliver framework.

It focuses on understanding the key manufacturing and service processes involved in providing valuable products and services for customers as well as important approaches (i.e., Lean and Six Sigma) to continuously improve these processes.

Once improvements are identified, project management skills are needed to develop new, innovative competencies in supply chains.

Learners will leave this course with skills necessary to continuously improve the key manufacturing and service processes involved in providing valuable products and services to customers, as well as the agile project management competencies necessary to embed new, innovative capabilities in their supply chains.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course focuses on ‘deliver’ in the plan, source, make, deliver framework. It is designed to provide students with a broad understanding of the customer service and delivery processes needed to drive demand-driven value networks.

The emphasis of this course will focus on systemic alignment across the functional capabilities of customer fulfillment service quality, transportation, distribution and return capabilities across the supply chain, with a specific emphasis on governance, performance management and the integration of advanced technologies.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course addresses customer-driven integrated value networks, with a primary focus on leveraging supply chain to enhance customer experience strategies and tactics.

Students work on applied projects for improved performance measurement and integration of boundary-spanning supply chain professionals with emphasis on co-creation of value with the customer and the measurement, improvement and personalization of the many aspects of the customer experience.

Students learn the management of supply chain fulfillment service quality, relationships, and customer segmentation in demand-driven value networks to provide customer experiences that are seamless.

In addition to the behavioral and relational dimensions, an increasing emphasis is on understanding and utilizing customer-enabling technological advancements, particularly artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, digital twins, and blockchain to design and execute customer-centric supply chains.

Analyzing customer data from industry partners, students apply data analytics and data visualization to assess and recommend improvements that are applicable across functional interfaces.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

Technology enablement through prescriptive and descriptive analytics and data story telling in digital and physical supply chains. Bridges the digital and analytical literacy gap in supply chains through analytics, providing students with a robust foundation in the digitalization of supply chain management and spotlighting the collaboration between human acumen and machine precision.

We dive into technologies such as blockchain, digital twins, business networks, automation, IoT, artificial intelligence and machine learning that are changing supply chains today and that will likely have an even greater impact in the future.

Leveraging knowledge from industry experts from large corporations (Google X, Capital One, Uber, JB Hunt, Waymo, etc.) and digital supply chain startups, students will apply product management by generating user persona and stories, creating a sprint-based plan to deliver an mvp, building an mvp, and during each phase present to the stakeholders and receive feedback. These skills include design thinking, customer discovery, agile work management, and prototyping, among others.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

Evaluate and select appropriate supply chain strategies, change management approaches, and governance structures for business situations.

This course leverages plan, source, make, deliver, customer service, and new product development capabilities to meet strategic and financial goals in demand-driven value networks.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course will survey standard and advanced analytical techniques used to transform data into actionable business intelligence and students will gain hands-on experience with these techniques.

They will gain an understanding of the practical considerations that arise in real-world applications by means of a term project.

They will gain exposure to data science software capable of advanced predictive analytics and also through cases, expose them to innovative ways in which firms are using analytics to improve supply chain management processes.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course addresses the question of how to make the “best” supply chain decisions that result in the optimum operational and financial results.

This course examines the supply chain value proposition by understanding and applying the goals of maximizing operating income and optimizing capital efficiency and the larger financial metric of Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

Supply chain decisions, activities and investments affect the financial results of the business organization.

It is essential that the supply chain professional has an understanding of how supply chain performance is reflected in financial reporting, both internally (within the company) and externally (to outside parties such as investors and creditors, and importantly ESG).

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This course focuses on supply chain network design and the established and emerging digital technologies needed to manage a supply chain as business conditions change and evolve.

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with design thinking skills that they can employ to design digital solutions that optimize supply chain performance considering costs, constraints and structure.

The course is a combination of industry projects, development of working knowledge of supply chain technologies, and supply chain optimization case studies (network-level planning, sourcing, producing, delivering).

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

Supply Chain Sustainability issues can carry significant supply chain challenges, risks, and opportunities. This course focuses on the relationship between environmental, social, and governance and supply chain planning, sourcing, manufacturing and service operations, logistics, and technologies

Students will apply project management techniques to initiatives including values-based leadership; diversity, inclusion, and ethics across the supply chain; globalizing social and environmental sustainability; and voluntary product standards and governance, stakeholder engagement, reverse logistics, humanitarian logistics, ethical sourcing, transparency, innovation, resource scarcity, waste reduction, carbon emissions, and human rights across the extended supply network.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

Exploring the strategic necessity of resilience within demand-driven value networks, this course equips students with the understanding to avoid, absorb, and recover from disruptions. It addresses a risk-balanced approach to product development, supply chain strategy, network design, and digital and physical technology implementation. Students will learn to create robust supply chains capable of greater operational agility by studying supply chain resilience — a deliberate strategy to fortify an organization’s ability to manage significant disruptions.

This course examines the resilience in the design of products, supply chain strategies, and networks, highlighting its complementarity to agility — the ability to sense and respond to changes in demand or supply quickly and reliably without compromising cost or quality.

Students will appreciate how structural investments in resilience foster operational agility by engaging in the practical application of these concepts through case studies, classroom discussions, and project-based learning, emphasizing the assessment of various stakeholder roles and decisions in disrupted supply chain scenarios. Upon completion, students will emerge capable of crafting resilient supply chain frameworks, strategically assessing risks, and leading with agility amidst market volatility.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing.

This is a more quantitative approach to measuring retail and CPG supply chain performance, modeling tradeoffs and making decisions.

Topics include forecasting, inventory management, network optimization, and transportation routing.

Prerequisite: Graduate Standing and Department Consent. (Typically offered: Irregular)

This course examines the planning and management of supply chain management globally and internationally, and emphasizes supplier selection and development, logistics options, strategic alliances, and performance measurement.

Emphasis is placed on the integration of purchasing, materials management, and multi-firm logistics planning. International logistics is also addressed within each of these topics.

Prerequisite: Graduate standing and departmental consent. (Typically offered: Irregular)