Supply chain and operations are at the core of how organizations deliver value to their customers. Effectively matching supply and demand is key to the success of any organization and world-class operations can lead to a significant and enduring competitive advantage. In contrast, poorly managed operations and supply chains can result in low customer satisfaction and diminished profit margins, ultimately leading to company failure in the long run. Beyond generating profits, companies around the world are also facing increasing pressure to perform well on the other two dimensions that constitute the ?triple bottom line?, namely people and the planet. By taking an ?end-to-end? view, we will explore a variety of topics related to managing today?s global supply chains, including environmental and social responsibility. The specific questions this course will address include: How can supply chain and operations help firms succeed? What are the issues and trade-offs confronting supply chain and operations managers? What tools and frameworks can managers use to tackle these challenges and develop and sustain a competitive advantage? What are the emergent environmental and social responsibility challenges facing supply chain managers and how should they address them? Topics covered: operations strategy, process analysis, statistical process control, lean operations, forecasting, inventory management under certain demand, sourcing, environmental and social responsibility in supply chains prereq: MBA student

Companies around the world are facing increasing pressure to perform well on the triple bottom line—People, Planet, and Profit—and responsible supply chain management is often a cornerstone of the CSR strategy for many companies. This course looks at how and why responsible supply chain management could be a powerful strategy to enhance a company’s triple bottom line. The course focuses on the social and environmental aspects of managing supply chain operations. Particular emphasis is placed on human rights, health and safety, and environmental issues faced by supply chain managers and the linkage to the firm’s supply chain strategy.

The motivation for developing this course is the widespread and growing recognition of the need to design and sustain reliable, responsive, resilient, and responsible supply chains to enable the delivery of high quality, high volume, and affordable physical and mental health care equitably in both developed and developing countries. The course advances an end-to-end, supply chain?centric view of the health care and medical devices sector ? i.e., linking the development of care to the delivery of care: ?from bench to bed.? The course highlights the interdependencies between organizations on the upstream (e.g., medical devices, pharma, and biotech firms) and downstream (e.g., hospitals and clinics) of the healthcare supply chain. Topics addressed include: managing supply chain risks with rapid growth in adverse events and recalls related to medical devices and drugs; and reducing the disparities in health care delivery in underserved communities around the world. Implications of scientific and technological advancements ? specifically, precision medicine, surgical robots, mobile & wearable devices, telemedicine and IoT (Internet of Technology) ? for designing and sustaining health care supply chains will be a theme that will run through the entire course. We will closely follow the developments related to COVID-19 pandemic throughout the duration of the course. In every class session, we will make a concerted effort to explore the topic of the session and its relevance to understanding and addressing COVID-19 related issues at the local, state, national and global levels -- e.g., understanding the roles of the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Companies in a wide-range of industries (such as agri-business, aerospace, construction, manufacturing, and medical technology) use Project Management for New Product Development, implementing strategic initiatives, and other business objectives. In the course of your career, those in business, government, and even non-profit organizations will spend a significant amount of their professional career either participating in, or leading projects. While every project is by definition unique in scope, some concepts and tools are considered industry best practices and are internationally recognized via the certification programs of the Project Management Institute. The course will focus on scheduling and critical path analysis, time management, cost estimating, resource utilization, and risk management. Specific tools will include Earned Value Management and the quantitative techniques for estimating schedule risk. The latter will include estimating task durations and the probabilities for project completion by specific time periods. The course will conclude an introduction of Agile Methodologies and Scrum.

Procurement and supply management has become increasingly visible in a world where supply is a major determinant of organizational success. Supply chain performance influences not only operational and financial risks but also reputational risk. Although this course explores cost containment and supply process improvement methods, it also pushes into revenue enhancement. The job of the supply manager today goes way beyond the scope of value and efficiency to the search for competitive advantage through the supply network. In addition to organizing the supply function for strategic advantage, the course explores strategic sourcing, supplier selection and evaluation techniques, supplier development methods, global sourcing techniques, as well as legal and ethical challenges. High-performance supply managers live for the challenges associated with building and maintaining a high-performance supply chain.

Manufactured products often travel across multiple countries and multiple states, using multiple modes of transportation, and channels of distribution before reaching final customers. Along the way, these products are processed at a variety of inventory transfer points, and reconfigured and combined with other products with the goal of arriving intact without damage in the right quantity, at the right place and right time. This course provides the knowledge, skills, and tools for understanding these core elements of logistics and transportation systems. Students will gain an understanding of the dynamics of key logistics and transportation decisions, including the design of distribution networks, choice of transportation modes and routes, location and configuration of distribution centers, and management of last mile logistics. Students will explore how these decisions are made by leading companies and what influence these decisions have on the performance dimensions of flexibility, speed, reliability, accessibility, and cost. Operations research techniques will be used to analyze, compare, and optimize these decisions. Throughout the course, students will be exposed to best practices and gain an appreciation for the challenges that typical companies face in managing their logistics and transportation network, including how to innovate in light of competitive pressures and external shocks.

Course prepares students to develop capabilities for (i) making well-informed technology choice decisions; (ii) effectively managing the development and implementation of technologies; and (iii) collaboratively engaging in crisis management and problem solving during technology development and implementation. The central question around which the course is organized is: How can existing and emerging technologies (e.g., IoT, automation, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, block chains) and the related process and people issues be managed to design and sustain reliable, responsive, resilient, and responsible supply chains? Analytic methods covered in the course to inform decisions related to the development and implementation of technologies include statistical methods (e.g., multivariate regression, time-series analysis, hazard models), risk analysis methods (e.g., decision trees) and predictive analytic methods (e.g., random forest). Through a combination of operations analysis case studies and hands-on exercises, students learn to evaluate the potential upside and downside risks of existing and emerging technologies. The final course project involves designing and testing of prototype systems for evaluating the development and implementation in supply chain and operations settings of companies.

This course introduces the tools and problem solving techniques for process improvement. While organized around the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control) terms used in Six Sigma, the class will also include concepts from Root Cause Analysis and Lean Thinking. While our focus is on implementing process improvements from a manager?s perspective, numerous technical tools to identify and implement process improvements, plus the quantitative methods used to identify capacity capabilities, utilization rates, and bottlenecks will be presented through a series of problems and practical exercises. In addition, the course will consider broader aspects of process improvement that includes an understanding organizational change, the importance of Change Management, and aligning process improvements with strategy.

This course introduces the concepts and theory of quality control, philosophical foundations of lean thinking, and technical concepts related to flow and pull, and tools such as value stream mapping, A3, and 5S. Students learn to identify, measure, and eliminate non-value added activities; process capability analysis; statistical process control; and acceptance sampling from extended value chains in manufacturing and service settings through hands-on exercises.

With the advancement of digital technologies and networking capabilities, firms are actively engaged in capturing ?big? data related to their supply chains. Firms recognize the immense potential in mining big data for improving the quality and timeliness of decisions, and becoming proactive in sensing and responding to external and internal signals of threats and opportunities. The course develops the capability to analyze and interpret structured and unstructured data that is fundamental to managing supply. The data analytics methods covered in the course include statistical methods (e.g., multivariate regression, logistics regression, GLMM, LASSO), machine learning methods (e.g., support vector machine, ensemble methods ? random forest, gradient boosting model) and optimization methods (e.g., deterministic and stochastic methods). Through a combination of operations analysis case studies and hands-on exercises, students learn (i) various facets of data analytics: data access, data aggregation, data analysis and data visualization; (ii) appropriateness and inappropriateness of big data analytic methods; and (iii) big data based predictive analytics. The final course project involves designing and testing of prototype systems in supply chain and operations settings of companies.

Managing the financial flows and capital is just as important as managing the physical flow of goods and services. This course focuses on the underlying link between supply chain performance and the financial systems within an organization. Students learn concepts and tools related to supply chain costing, valuation, and projecting cash flow and capital requirements. The course looks at issues including tax and trade credits, and students develop an understanding of how financial considerations influence and inform a firm’s supply chain strategy.