Not long ago, platforms like
Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/) or edX (https://www.edx.org/) started
offering the possibility to enroll free courses, ranging from Law to Arts,
Management, Sports and many more.
Since then thousands of people
have had the opportunity to develop their skills, I’m among those thousands,
and currently I’m working through passing the first of three courses offered by
edX and focused on Supply Chain Management.
This first Course (CTL.SC1x
Supply Chain and Logistics Fundamentals) runs for eleven weeks and covers all
the basics of Supply Chain focusing on three main areas Demand Forecasting,
Inventory Management, and Transportation Planning.
If you have the time and
interest, this first course developed by the MIT presents each of the above
topics in a clear and very structured way, including examples and assignments
that will help you get the foundation you need to accomplish the following two
courses.
Below you can see the Course schedule,
taken from the edX website should you are interested in starting the course.
- Overview of SCM
An overview of
supply chain management perspectives, core concepts, and basic approaches. It
is a chance to get familiar with the edX platform, the discussion forum, and
the course materials.
- Forecasting I: Introduction
We introduce demand
management and focus specifically on demand forecasting. We will develop and
use basic time series models.
- Forecasting II: Exponential Smoothing
We will expand the
use of time series models to include Exponential Smoothing. We will develop and
test different model forms for stationary, trend, and seasonality patterns.
- Forecasting IV: Causal Analysis & Special Cases
We introduce
ordinary least squares regression that can be used for causal analysis. We
finish the Forecasting section by discussing two special cases: intermittent
demand and new product forecasting.
- Inventory I: Overview & Deterministic Demand
The inventory
section opens up with the simplest inventory model: the Economic Order Quantity
(EOQ)
- Inventory II: Stock Outs & Single Period Models
We now expand from
our initial assumptions of deterministic and constant demand to allow for
stochastic or random demand. In this module we restrict the time frame to a
single period and develop what is called the Newsvendor Model.
- Inventory III: Probabilistic Demand Models
This week is spent
developing and using the most common inventory policies in practice for both
continuous and periodic review situations. We will spend a lot of time
developing models that either minimize costs or meet a specified level of
service.
- Inventory IV: Special Cases
We will show some
methods for applying these inventory models for multiple items and multiple
locations at the same time. We will wrap up the inventory section by discussing
some real world implications and concerns.
- Transportation I: Fundamentals
The transportation
section focuses on understanding the fundamentals of freight transportation
from a global perspective. We will show how to make routing decisions with
multiple legs and demonstrate how this also applies to any mode selection. We
also show how to handle uncertainty in lead-times and demonstrate how this
relates back to inventory policies.
- Transportation II: One To Many distribution
In this final
transportation lesson, we introduce an approximation method for determining
transportation costs. We demonstrate this approach on a common one-to-many
distribution situation that most firms face. We finish this week – and the
entire course – with a wrap up of the major concepts and some suggestions on
using them in practice.
- Final Exam
The final exam
covers all of the material in this course.
So here you go, if you feel like
you want to give it a go, just register and look for the below course!
“CTL.SC1x Supply
Chain and Logistics Fundamentals”
Enjoy!
