Coordinating and Managing Supply Chains

Course Number 2108

Assistant Professor Zeynep Ton
 Fall, 29 sessions
Exam

Career Focus

This course is appropriate for students interested in pursuing careers in any management function (e.g., operations, marketing, and finance) in firms that make, sell and/or distribute physical products, as well as in firms (e.g., consulting firms, investment banks, and software providers) that offer products and services to those firms.

Educational Objectives

Coordinating and Managing Supply Chains (CMSC) builds on a number of core topics in the RC curriculum, especially technology and operations management, marketing, and control. Topics explored in depth include inventory management, forecasting, incentives, operational execution, and the role of supply chain intermediaries. The course focuses on managing material and information flows across organizational boundaries, and emphasizes the challenges of managing across both functional and firm boundaries.

Several sessions in the course focus on analytical techniques such as inventory modeling and decision making in uncertain environments. However, the emphasis of the course is on the "general manager's perspective" on supply chains. The sessions on analytical techniques, for example, are intended to build students' abilities as general managers to be "intelligent consumers" of these techniques. Cases in the course further illustrate that barriers to integrating supply chains often relate to behavioral issues (e.g., misaligned incentives and change management) and operational execution problems that fall squarely in the domain of the general manager. The course makes clear that suitable information technology is a necessary, but not sufficient, ingredient for supply chain integration.

Content and Organization

The CMSC course comprises four modules:

  1. Logistics - This module examines transportation economics, the role of distributors, and network design for the efficient and effective flow and storage of goods and information in a supply chain.
  2. Fundamentals: Matching Supply with Demand - This module introduces students to basic analytical tools for inventory and production planning as well as the role of inventory in the broader context of business strategy and financial performance.
  3. Operational Execution - This module considers common execution problems that undermine supply chain performance, and identifies potential approaches (such as RFID technologies and process design) for managing these problems.
  4. Incentive Alignment - This module introduces students to the problems that arise due to conflicting channel incentives and provides a framework for analyzing these problems.

Course Format and Evaluation

The course consists of 29 required class sessions and a comprehensive final exam. Final course grades will be based on class participation, attendance, and the final exam.