MIT

This course investigates a new framework for better managing supply chains in today's rapidly changing markets. It will explore the role of supply chain design in business strategy and why, if not linked, your supply chain design can undo a company's entire business strategy. Participants will also be appraised on forces that influence supply chain structure—how supply chain structures change; how supply chain structures and industry structures overlap; and how these structures are affected by the speed of change in a given industry.

Driving Supply Chain Advantage

Supply chain strategy is a rather challenging task as it relates to decisions related to supply chain design, demand forecasting, and production planning. The course will provide the participants, via a set of games and theory, the opportunity to experience the crafting of supply strategies using fundamentals in demand forecasting, inventory management approaches, supply chain process re-engineering, balancing supply chain risks and identifying the financial implications of their decisions in a rather dynamic environment.

Supply Chain Dynamics

In a world of growing complexity, many of the most vexing problems facing managers arise from the unanticipated side-effects of their own past actions. In response, organizations struggle to speed learning and adopt a more systemic approach. Thus, we need practical tools that help managers understand complexity, design better operating policies, and guide effective change.

This program introduces participants to system dynamics, a powerful framework for identifying, designing, and implementing supply chain strategies. It has been used successfully in diverse industries and organizations, such as Airbus, Compaq, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Merck. Developed at MIT more than thirty years ago by computer pioneer Jay Forrester, systems dynamics led to the creation of management flight simulators that allow managers to experience the long-term side effects of decisions, accelerate learning, and design structures and strategies for greater success.