Master’s Degree in Supply Chain Management

This Supply Chain Fundamentals course is part of the MITx MicroMasters Credential in Supply Chain Management, offered by #1 ranked SCM Master's program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The CTL.SC1x Supply Chain Fundamentals course provides the foundational skills for supply chain management and logistics. You will learn how to develop and apply analytic tools, approaches, and techniques used in the design and operation of logistics systems and integrated supply chains. The material is taught from a managerial perspective, with an emphasis on where and how specific tools can be used to improve the overall performance and reduce the total cost of a supply chain. We place a strong emphasis on the development and use of fundamental mathematical models to illustrate the underlying concepts involved in both intra- and inter-company logistics operations.

The main topic areas we will focus on this course are:

• Demand Forecasting, Planning, and Management
• Inventory Planning, Management, and Control
• Transportation Planning, Management, and Execution

While our main objective is to develop and use models to help us analyze these situations, we will make heavy use of examples from industry to provide illustrations of the concepts in practice. This is neither a purely theoretical nor a case study course, but rather an applied analytical course that addresses real problems found in practice.

This Supply Chain Design course is part of the MITx MicroMasters Credential in Supply Chain Management, offered by #1 ranked SCM Master's program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

CTL.SC2x Supply Chain Design covers all aspects involved in the design of supply chains for companies and organizations anywhere in the world. The course is divided into four main topic areas: Physical flow design, Supply chain finance, Information flow design, and Organization/Process design. In the design of physical flows, we show how to formulate and solve Transportation, Transshipment, Facility Location, and Network Design Problems. For financial flows we show how to translate supply chain concepts and actions into the language of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a company. We cover Activity Based Costing, Working Capital, the Cash-to-Cash cycle and Discounted Cash Flow Analysis. The design of the information flow section describes how firms communicate with suppliers (procurement, risk contracts), internal resources (production planning, bills of materials, material requirements planning), and customers (Sales & Operations Planning and other collaboration based processes). In the last section, we introduce performance metric design and organizational design within the supply chain organization focusing mainly on the centralize/decentralize decision.

The main topic areas we will focus on in this course are:

• Supply Chain Network Design
• Supply Chain Finance
• Supplier Management
• Production and Demand Planning
• Process and Organizational Design

This course is indispensable if you’re considering a supply chain management career and, specifically, the positions of Supply Chain Analyst , Operations Manager , or Logistics Coordinator.

Supply Chains are complex systems involving multiple firms and organizations with different goals and objectives. Additionally, there are external forces and trends that can impact (positively or negatively) a supply chain’s efficiency and effectiveness. Understanding the dynamics and risks within supply chains, both large and small, is key to being a successful supply chain professional.

This course builds on the fundamental models introduced in SC1x and the design trade-offs covered in SC2x. It is essentially a capstone in understanding how to successfully model, design, and manage a supply chain in any industry. We will divide the course into three sections.

First, we will introduce the field of System Dynamics. Developed at MIT, system dynamics is an approach that examines and models complex systems that feature interacting, non-linear, and dynamic elements. The objective is to better understand the underlying features of a complex system and to recommend policies and other actions to improve overall performance.

Second, we will explore the concepts of supply chain risk. Supply chains are subject to a wide number of potential disruptions – from both within and outside of the supply chain. Students will understand how supply chains can be better designed and managed to not only mitigate the downside of supply chain disruption but also to leverage and capture any upside.

Finally, the students will engage in a series of more extended case studies and simulations that demonstrate these complex relationships. Actual case studies and examples from companies will be used to help students better prepare for actual situations.

This course is part of a MicroMasters program.

There are underlying fundamental principles and concepts that apply to all supply chains, which can be expressed in relatively straightforward models. However, to actually implement them across a real supply chain requires the use of technology across multiple systems. Supply chains have a long history of using technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness. The shear scale and scope of most supply chains require many distinct systems to interact with each other.

Unfortunately, technology is a moving target. It is constantly evolving and improving so that today's technology is outdated within a few years or months. Rather than focusing on a specific software system, this business and management course will focus on three aspects: fundamental concepts, core systems, and data analysis.

We will start with the introduction of fundamental concepts that are used in all software tools. We will cover IT fundamentals, including project management and software processes, data modeling, UML, relational databases and SQL. We will also introduce Internet technologies, such as XML, web services, and service-oriented architectures. No prior programming experience required.

We will then provide an overview of the main types of supply chain software including ERP, WMS, and TMS systems. We will describe their main functionality, how they work, how they are used, their architecture, data flows, and how they are organized into modules. We will also cover the software selection process and how software upgrade and implementation projects should be organized and managed.

Finally, we will dive into data analysis that is core to all large supply chains. We will introduce visualization and big data analysis techniques that are used in practice today.

Supply chains are complex systems involving multiple businesses and organizations with different goals and objectives. Many different analytical methods and techniques are used by researchers and practitioners alike to better design and manage their supply chains. This business and management course introduces the primary methods and tools that you will encounter in your study and practice of supply chains. We focus on the application of these methods, not necessarily the theoretical underpinnings.

We will begin with an overview of introductory probability and decision analysis to ensure that students understand how uncertainty can be modeled. Next, we will move into basic statistics and regression. Finally, we will introduce optimization modeling from unconstrained to linear, non-linear, and mixed integer linear programming.

This is a hands-on course. Students will use spreadsheets extensively to apply these techniques and approaches in case studies drawn from actual supply chains.

SC0x is different from our other courses as it is self-paced and has a scheduled final exam. All material is made available during the second week, allowing learners to begin with any topic at their own convenience.