Certification in Supply Chain Management

Explore the fundamentals of supply chain management, including its introduction, importance, and the key activities that constitute supply chain management.

Learn how to coordinate materials, information, and finances across suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers to deliver the right product at the right time and place, at optimal cost.

Explore the importance of supply chain management, comparing absent and effective strategies, and show how reducing inventories, sharing information, and collaborative planning boost efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Explore how strategic, tactical, and operational decisions shape the supply chain, from site location and supplier partnerships to production, logistics, and inventory management for long-term value.

Explore the strategic, operational, and individual level activities that drive supply chain management, from network design to order fulfillment, and learn how communication and shared understanding boost performance.

Explore unit three on process strategies and drivers, examining the process view of the supply chain, push and pull linking, and the scope of supply chain activities.

Explore the process view of the supply chain by analyzing the customer order, replenishment, manufacturing, and procurement cycles, and how ERP systems coordinate them for efficiency.

Explore the push and pull view of supply chains, contrasting forecast‑driven production with demand‑driven manufacturing, and learn how hybrid strategies balance efficiency, responsiveness, and inventory risk.

Link competitive business strategies with supply chain plans by aligning finance, accounting, IT, and HR to operations, distribution, services, marketing, sales, and new product development.

Explore how the four supply chain drivers—inventory, transportation, facilities, and information—shape performance, costs, and service by examining demand forecasting, routing, layout design, and real-time data.

Explore the scope of supply chain activities from sourcing and procurement to reverse logistics, highlighting how production, inventory, warehousing, distribution, and customer service connect to goals and resilience.

Design the supply chain network with marketing mix model and assess the distribution network, facility count, and storage options like manufacturer storage with direct shipping, drop shipping, and customer pickup.

Explore the four p's of the marketing mix—price, product, promotion, and place—and how they guide pricing, product design, promotion strategies, and distribution to meet customer needs and drive profitability.

Learn how a supply chain network is designed by linking suppliers, manufacturing centers, warehouses, distribution centers, and retail outlets, with flows of raw materials, work-in-progress, finished products, and transportation modes.

Optimize understanding of the distribution network's role in delivering products through channels like direct sales, retailers, wholesalers, and online platforms, linking costs to customer experience.

Explore how the number and location of facilities, such as warehouses and distribution centers, affect logistics cost through economics of scale, transportation, inventory, and lead times.

Explore how manufacturer storage with direct shipping (drop shipping) lowers fixed storage costs, relies on real-time inventory and supplier coordination, and balances customer experience with margins amid partial shipments.

Distributor storage with package carrier delivery stores inventory in distributor warehouses and delivers directly to customers, lowering transportation costs, improving response times, and enabling order aggregation for e-commerce.

Understand the hybrid model of storing inventory at manufacturer or distributor warehouses and using pickup points to aggregate orders online or by phone, lowering transportation costs and boosting customer convenience.

Explore how e-business transforms supply chains and how to utilize an e-business and supply chain model to improve operations.

Explore how e-business uses information and communication technologies to conduct online activities, enhance efficiency, and manage supply chains across B2B, B2C, and government interactions, with benefits and challenges.

Explore how e-business powers customer management, online store setup, marketing, dropshipping, payments, shipping, invoicing and packaging, pricing strategies, order management, global trading, and digitalized product stores.

Explore the supply chain model's plan, source, make, deliver, and return processes, and learn how demand and supply balance through planning, procurement, production, logistics, and post-delivery support.

Explore designing and planning transportation networks within the supply chain, covering transportation infrastructure, policies, direct shipping networks, and tailored networks.

Explore how supply chain management drives efficiency in a global economy, focusing on transportation as the backbone and on coordinating activities with technology, network design, and sustainable practices.

Explore how transportation moves goods through the supply chain, covering distribution, packaging, intermodal coordination, intelligent transportation systems, and strategy for route optimization and sustainability.

Explore transportation infrastructure and policies, focusing on terminals as transfer points, storage, loading, and maintenance facilities across airports, ports, rail stations, and bus stations, including financing, types, and optimization strategies.

Discover the direct shipping network, where manufacturers ship directly to retailers or customers, bypassing warehouses to cut costs and shorten order processing times, with examples from Zara and Amazon Prime.

Explore the tailored supply chain network, a strategic integration of services with the core product to deliver customized, cost-efficient, value-added solutions through customization, integration, flexibility, and responsiveness.

Explore unit seven on sourcing and revenue, introducing the primary levels of revenue management and the strategy for revenue management and warehousing in Eskom's supply chain management.

Understand the elements of an effective sourcing strategy, including supplier base design, procurement planning, pricing strategies like everyday low pricing and high-low pricing, and alignment with stakeholder objectives.

Explore primary levels of revenue management, focusing on pricing strategies and inventory management. See how pricing objectives and tactics, plus inventory techniques like just in time and EOQ, drive profitability.

Explore how temporary price promotions balance volume growth and profitability, optimize channel strategies, and align long-term commitments with revenue management in supply chains.

Explore the four R strategy of revenue management: right time, right price, right product, and right customer, through strategies, tactics, and real-world examples across industries.

Explore warehousing in supply chain management, including storage, order fulfillment, inventory control, cross-docking, and diverse warehouse types and strategies such as just-in-time and warehouse management systems.

Explore information technology in the supply chain, including the introduction, customer relationship management, scm goals, the seven rights of fulfillment, and internal supply chain management.

Explore how information and web-based technologies transform supply chain management by improving demand forecasting, real-time visibility, and collaboration through ERP systems, RFID, IoT, digital twins, and secure transactions.

Learn how customer relationship management combines methodologies, software, and internet tools to manage customer interactions across the life cycle, with segmentation, CLV, feedback, and analytics.

Explore the seven rights of fulfilment in supply chain management, detailing right product, customer, time, place, condition, quantity, and cost, plus strategies and supporting technologies.

Optimize procurement and sourcing, production and operation, inventory management, distribution and logistics, customer service and support, and process improvement. Apply lean manufacturing and just-in-time practices for a cost-effective flow.

Explore coordination in a supply chain and the dimensions of logistics, including the bullwhip effect, collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment, and inbound and outbound logistics.

Explains how coordination in a supply chain integrates purchasing, manufacturing, warehousing, transportation, and customer service to optimize cost, efficiency, and customer satisfaction through information sharing and collaborative planning.

Explore the bullwhip effect in forecast-driven supply chains, tracing how small demand changes amplify upstream and identifying causes, impacts, and mitigation strategies like information sharing and just in time inventory.

Explore collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (cpfr) as buyers and sellers align demand through a reference model to increase availability while reducing costs and mitigating the bullwhip effect.

Discover the dimensions of logistics, from transportation and warehousing to inventory, order fulfillment, and information management, and how modern practices drive cost efficiency, market reach, and customer satisfaction.

Explore inbound and outbound logistics in manufacturing, covering sourcing, transportation, receiving, warehousing, and distribution, and learn how integration and technology improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Explore demand management, customer service, and the balance of supply and demand, with graphical representations of their relationship, and examine demand forecasting and demand forecasting error.

Explore the demand management framework in global supply chains—demand management, demand planning, and sales forecasting management—and how price signals balance supply and demand.

Master supply and demand balance, including the laws of demand and supply, market equilibrium, and movements vs. shifts of curves, illustrated by price ceilings and floors.

Discover how the graphical representation of supply and demand determines price and quantity, identifies equilibrium, and explains surplus, shortage, and curve shifts.

Forecast future demand using predictive analytics to guide inventory, pricing, and capacity, applying informal and quantitative methods like time series and regression.

Explore demand forecasting error, its types such as absolute and relative errors, MAE, MSE, RMSE, MAPE, and tracking signal, and strategies like data accuracy and model evaluation.