
Course Introduction
Explore how supply chains touch everyday life, powering deliveries, warehousing, and logistics from farms to stores. See global sourcing, assembly, and distribution of cars, clothes, and electronics.
Explore the end-to-end supply chain from suppliers to factory to distribution networks and warehouses. Learn how material, cash, and information flow drive operations, plus reverse logistics handling returns.
Analyze how a smartphone supply chain moves electronic components, batteries, chargers, and plastics from producers to Indian assembly plants, with batteries mainly manufactured in China and final products shipped worldwide.
Explore the trade-off between cost and consumer requirements in supply chain design. Learn how inventory decisions, storage needs, and timely delivery impact costs across pharma, food, fmcg, and fashion.
Compute how supply chain surplus is the difference between the price customers pay and total costs to produce and distribute the product, and how higher surplus signals profitability and sustainability.
Explore manufacturing storage with drop shipment, where distribution partners collect orders and pass them to the factory, which ships to customers and lacks direct customer contact, avoiding retailer inventory.
Manufacturer to distribution center to retailer structures a supply chain where manufacturers partner with distributors who supply retail locations, handling local delivery with their own vehicles, ideal for FMCG goods.
Explore how independent distributors with an omni-channel network buy products from multiple factories, store inventory, and sell through direct sales, local retailers, and regional warehouses.
Explore planning in the supply chain as it coordinates money, machines, and people to meet business objectives and ensure product travels from suppliers to customers on time using forecasts.
Learn business planning, demand planning, sales and operations planning, production planning, supply planning, and logistics planning to align capacity, procurement, and delivery with forecasted demand.
Implement bottoms up demand planning by collecting district-level forecasts from sales representatives, aggregating to state and country levels, and reviewing each tier for a consolidated forecast.
Learn how over planning can cause excess and dead inventory, under planning can cut sales, and how lead times align the shortest planning horizon with the longest lead time.
Explore aggregate planning strategies that balance cost and sales revenue by managing capacity and inventory, considering service level, back orders, and loss sales to optimize resource use.
Discover how materials requirement planning (mrp) uses bill of materials, production schedule, and inventory data to determine what is needed, how much, and when.
Identify MRP inputs such as master schedule, on-hand inventory, planned receipts, and explain lead time components—procurement, sub-assemblies, assembly, testing, and final inspection—to plan production timing.
Explore MRP outputs, including planned order releases for supplier procurement, projected inventory, and production schedules, plus exception reports for capacity constraints to reschedule production.
Apply material requirements planning calculations using a ball pen bill of materials and master production schedule to determine gross and net requirements, on-hand stock, lead time, planned receipts, and planned orders.
Configure to order standardizes the product, creates variation with minimal changes, and achieves quick lead times and low inventory, with beer alcohol content and pack sizes, paint shades on demand.
Identify causes of the bullwhip effect, including price discount, order batching, shortage gaming, and forecast inaccuracy, and counter with stable pricing, timely communication, frequent small orders, and strong information sharing.
Explore warehousing objectives, including storage, shipment consolidation via transit warehouses, and value-added services like kitting. Examine the warehouse process flow from receiving to dispatch and transportation modes and costs.
Supply chains are the invisible engines driving today’s global economy. From the food we eat to the technology we use, every product relies on a complex network of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers working together to deliver value. This course is designed to demystify that process and provide you with a solid foundation in supply chain management.
You will begin by exploring the essential building blocks of supply chains: procurement, production, inventory management, logistics, and distribution. Each module breaks down these concepts into practical insights, showing how decisions in one area ripple across the entire system. Through real‑world examples and case studies, you’ll see how leading companies optimize lead times, balance costs, and adapt to challenges such as fluctuating demand, global disruptions, and sustainability requirements.
The course emphasizes both theory and application. You’ll learn key frameworks for analyzing supply chain performance, understand the role of technology in modern operations, and discover strategies for building resilience in uncertain environments. Interactive exercises and downloadable resources will help you apply these principles to real scenarios, ensuring that your learning is actionable and relevant.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
Understand the fundamental components of supply chain management: procurement, production, inventory, logistics, and distribution.
Identify key supply chain drivers and explain how they impact efficiency and cost.
Map the flow of goods, services, and information across a supply chain network.
Analyze real‑world case studies to see how companies optimize lead times and manage demand fluctuations.
Recognize the role of technology and data in modern supply chain operations.
Apply basic frameworks to evaluate supply chain performance and resilience.
Explore strategies for balancing cost, quality, and speed in global supply chains.
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