Supply Chain Management

To manage a supply chain is to manage the flow of resources to the parts of a business that contribute to the production of a product, throughout the life-cycle of the product, that is from raw materials to getting to its customer. There are elements of supply chain management, which have been studied extensively in many fields but perhaps most pronouncedly in operations management, where the raw materials of your goods and services will always find their way eventually. In other words, supply chain management manages the flow of goods from the point of origin to the point of consumption.

In Manhattan Review’s Supply Chain Management Course, we will take an integrated approach to managing supply chains, rather than looking at the subject from the perspectives of different diciplines. You will learn to develop a supply chain model for different business circumstances and situations as well as learn analytical tools used to design and understand supply chains.

Supply chain management and supply chains are broad subjects yet heavily ingrained in the minds of business people and operations managers. Problems with supply chains can have far reaching effects for your organization, so the most efficient management is crucial. Supply Chain management can be thought of as having 4 distinct parts: Sourcing, Procurement, Conversion, and Logistics. In this course, we will teach you the tools of managing a supply chain as they are relevant to all four stages, and how to deal with problems that may arise in each area: How will you source a particularly rare material, and when you do, how will you get it? Then how does it get to the manufacturing plant in tact?

We will also cover the interesting topic Supply Chain Event Management. SCEM is a novel resource in that it uses mathematical models to predict all the possible ways a supply chain could be disrupted and the events behind them. SCEM gives Supply Chain Managers a tool to predict and solve disruptions before they happen. If there is a disruption, the manager will have a resource of information on how to solve the problem effectively and efficiently.

Supply chain managers have a number of problems to solve and areas to address. These include Distribution Network Configuration, Distribution Strategy, Information, Inventory Management, and Cash Flow. We will teach you how to address these issues and solve potential problems. With a firm basis of understanding for the issues involved in Supply Chain Management, you will be able to formulate your own strategic plan and implement it with the best tools available. Have a precise and efficiently managed supply chain will keep all the areas of your business in order to focus on their specific tasks, putting your organization ahead in customer satisfaction and product quality.

Like many other topics in business, there are many considerations to base your decisions off of in managing or developing a supply chain. What kind of goods are you using? How is the supply chain different if the goods are perishable or extremely fragile or even dangerous? As a supply chain manager, many of the sources of your raw materials will be out of your control and to a large extent out of your organizations control. You will need to develop models and concepts to keep you and your business partners both in communication with the other entities controlling your raw materials, as well as keeping them in a trusting relationship with you. In the cross border, cross function and cross organization world of supply chains, there can be logistical errors and other disruption in the receiving and shipping of goods. As a supply chain manager, you will be responsible for preventing and solving those problems. We will teach you the analytical and organizational tools a supply chain manager needs to prevent the problems associated with maintaining the movement of your goods.

Supply chain management is both strategic and tactical. How prepared are you to manage both of these competing demands at once? The strategic aspects include your distribution network, buying vs. making decisions, aligning supply and organization strategy, product design, and information technology infrastructure. The tactical aspects include decisions about inventory, transportation and benchmarking against competitors.

With all of the different hats one must wear in supply chain management, from theoretical model building to forecast problems to may disrupt the chain, to scheduling the pick up of a shipment of goods, there is a lot of information to take in. Supply chain management is extensively researched and there are volumes of literature on the subject. In Manhattan Review’s course, we will organize and structure the information and present a well rounded and broad perspective on the subject, without getting you too bogged down in theory. We will teach you how to implement and develop supply chain strategy, and show by example how to do everything from shipping an order to planning your IT infrastructure.

Topics Covered

• Strategy
• Tactics
• Operations
• Maintenance and design of distribution networks
• Supply and demand
• Supply Chain Event Management
• Analytical tools for problem solving and model development
• Survey of commonly used SC models