MN4485 Supply Chain Strategy

This course is concerned with the development of managerial, economical, and sociological thinking in the context of supply chain management. Most people consume products without thinking about the vast networks of supply chains that brought that cold can of soda into your hand. These networks include people, products, money, information, and transportation. The principal objective of SCM is to deliver the right product to the right customer at the right time while incurring the lowest cost possible. In the context of defense supply chain scholars going as long ago as Sun Tzu in his book the Art of War stresses the importance of good SCM in ensuring dominance in wars and conflicts. Mathematics, economics, and sociology all come together in SCM. Critically thinking about all three of these areas will be essential in your development into becoming an expert.

Prerequisite

GE3040 and GE3042

Lecture Hours

3

Lab Hours

0

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Assess, identify, quantify, and offset risks associated with a logistics strategy based upon knowledge of people and material to be moved, transportation methods chosen and the characteristics of the supply network as well as compare different logistics strategies and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each.
• Evaluate various stock positioning strategies, assess the relationship between stock positioning and transportation planning, measure the impact of warehousing decisions on inventory requirements, and evaluate the operational implications of warehouse placement, configuration, and material handling policies.
• Identify various risks in a logistics strategy; examine different approaches to mitigating or minimizing risks and uncertainty in the logistics environment; estimate the costs of uncertainty in the logistics environment.
• Assess costs and benefits of various logistics strategies.
• Develop models to solve problems related to course learning outcomes.