Logistics and supply chain management (Masterclass Gold)

Manage demand and plan ahead by applying the five pillars of planning: strategic networking, sales and operations planning, master production scheduling, order planning, and production activity control.

Explore qualitative and quantitative forecasting methods, contrasting judgmental, experience-based approaches with data-driven techniques using historic data, including moving average and exponential moving average.

Allocate human and non-human resources through resource planning. Use capacity planning, capacity requirement planning, nominal and net capacity, queue, and short term and long term measures.

Master capacity planning by comparing infinite and finite load systems to balance load with capacity. Use overtime or third-party delegation to keep load at or below capacity.

Discover how two departments—forecasting and the custom order process—form a demand management system to meet customer needs through one-time, unique, and repetitive orders.

Learn how the customer order process in logistics and supply chain management flows from quotation to delivery, including the delivery time framework, reservations, planned production, and available-to-promise calculations.

Forecasting guides demand planning by projecting future events and restocking needs using past ERP data, while recognizing patterns like random, stable, trend, seasonal, and cyclical variations.

Learn how moving average and exponential moving average methods forecast future demand, using recent data and a smoothing factor alpha (0.15–0.3) to weight past periods.

Explore forecasting trend and seasonal demand using moving average, exponential moving average, and regression in Excel to estimate future demand amid uncertainty.

Explore how to use Excel to create a time series from 1990 to 2014, add a trendline, and forecast 2015–2017 using the displayed equation.

Forecast yearly demand in Excel using the shown formula to estimate 2015, and explore how changing the year affects the forecast, with a future lesson on seasonal pattern.

Forecast demand with seasonal data by calculating mean, seasonal averages, and seasonal factors. Deseasonalize data and use 2017 patterns to project December 2018 demand.

Account for forecast errors in logistics, using average forecast error and mean absolute deviation, and tune exponential moving average with alpha to reduce deviations.

Distinguish independent and dependent demand in materials management. Compare push and pull systems to manage production flow and warehouse inventory.

Explore how stock function balances input and output across the supply chain to maintain seamless flow using cycle stock, safety stock, leveling stock, synchronization stock, speculation stock, and obsolescence stock.

Explore material management and transportation to balance supply and demand, using reorder point, safety stock, and lead time to trigger replenishments in the supply chain.

Master material requirements planning (MRP) as a consumption-based method that uses a bill of materials to calculate gross requirements, planned order delivery, and projected available inventory.

Explore distribution requirement planning (drp) and its parallels with material requirements planning, using multi-warehouse templates to forecast, balance stock, and coordinate replenishment from a central warehouse.

Learn how kanban cards signal replenishment and convey quantity and lead time, then compute card count using Y = D × L × (1 + α) / Q.

Discover how to determine the economic order quantity (EOQ) by balancing ordering costs and inventory carrying costs, using the EOQ formula to optimize lot size and stock replenishment.

Learn how safety stock serves as a buffer for uncertain demand and lead times. Apply the formula of maximum daily usage times maximum lead time to determine inventory safety levels.

Learn how consolidation pools goods from multiple routes at a central hub into larger hauls, reducing trucks, congestion, and costs while lowering CO2 emissions.

Evaluate load capacity by comparing required to available capacity and calculating factor; address imbalances, consolidation, item characteristics, and trucks, pallets, and boxes within Rogerson and Sincere framework to improve utilization.

Plan routes from a terminal by clustering customers for picking and delivery within a traffic area, and apply the sweep method to consolidate goods and load the truck to capacity.

Use the savings matrix to identify the most profitable routes by calculating AB, BC, and AC savings, select AB as highest, then plan routes and trucks.

Explore network optimization in logistics by examining decision variables, objective function, and constraints, and learn how capacity limits shape decisions using Excel solver to maximize profits or reduce expenses.

Apply a network optimization model to minimize shipping costs by defining the decision variables, the objective function, and capacity and demand constraints across warehouses and distribution centers.

Transform three components into a transportation optimization model by defining shipment variables, minimizing total shipping costs, and applying supply and demand constraints across distribution centers.

Explore how to build and solve a network optimization model in Excel to minimize total shipping cost, using the decision variables, an objective function, and supply and demand constraints.

Explore how terminals function as hub-and-spoke logistics hubs, balancing local and long-distance gates. See how night sorting, gate designation, and inter-terminal links enable around-the-clock cargo movement.

Track and trace resources across the supply chain with an information system that enables traceability, identification, and information sharing using GS1 standards and data carriers.

Explore how to structure transportation pricing by evaluating distance, volume, density, shape, temperature, risk, and market dynamics to build a practical pricing regime for logistics services.

Master procurement by detailing supplier selection, follow-up, and order delivery within the supply chain, covering finished goods, components, and raw materials.

Explore procurement in logistics through supply contracts and market factors, covering direct competition and strategic contracts, fixed price, cost related, escalation, quantity flexible, buyback, revenue sharing, and sales rebate.

Incoterms define who pays for shipment, insurance, and delivery terms in buyer-supplier procurement, clarifying responsibilities in global transactions. Explore examples like FOB and CIF and how they allocate costs.

Explore the hidden financial factors behind material procurement and pricing, including quality, inventory, transport, supplier, customer, environmental, logistics, and handling costs, to set an informed product price.

Evaluate suppliers using criteria such as product significance and financial strength. Assess quality, process development, technological status, procurement and production processes, and environmental policies.

Explore the negative effects of supply chains, focusing on the bullwhip effect caused by demand variation, time delays, delivery times, and delivery precision, plus data sharing and coordination as mitigations.

Explore time delays and the bullwhip effect in supply chains, and how make-to-order challenges, information sharing, and information systems reduce delivery time and wastage.

Foster cooperation among supply chain players to achieve a more robust offering by addressing uncertainty in demand, outsourcing and transaction costs, and operational dependency.

Explore collaboration concepts in logistics, including optimization of administrative work and materials management with vendor managed inventory and customer managed ordering, plus joint material flow with planning, forecasting and replenishment.

Maximize resource utilization through collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment, quick response system, and efficient consumer response, integrating sales information, promotions, assortment control, and product launches.

Explore how organizations collaborate to exploit core competencies across the value chain, align performance measure systems, and share risk and reward within the collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment system.

Design your product supply chain through Fisher's framework by assessing functional versus innovative products, lead times, margins, demand patterns, and shelf life to structure responsive or efficient supply chains.

Wrap up the logistics and supply chain management masterclass by inviting you to apply what you have learned in real life and improve your current practices.