Supply Chain Management

Duration

45h Th

Number of credits

Lecturer

Yasemin Arda

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

Interest in supply chain management, both in industry and in academia, has grown rapidly over the past several years, and continues to grow. A number of forces have contributed to this trend: the severe competition in today's global markets, the increasing variety of products, the products with shorter and shorter life cycles, the heightened expectations of customers, etc. Many of the companies facing these difficulties have discovered the magnitude of savings that can be achieved through effective supply chain management practices. Supply chain management is defined as a set of approaches utilized to efficiently coordinate all the organizational units along a supply chain in order to improve the competitiveness of a supply chain as a whole. Logistics management is that part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and controls the effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information in order to meet customer requirements. This course treats the fundamental topics of logistics and supply chain management: supply chain network design, distribution strategies in supply chains, production process design and facility layout, aggregate production planning, managing inventories in supply chains, master production scheduling and material requirements planning, value of information in supply chains (bullwhip effect).

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

In relation with the Assurance of Learning process of HEC Liège, the learning objectives adressed in this course are:

• Strategy: This course will help students to establish a strategy in order to optimize the value chain of a company, an organization or a project.
• Strategy: This course will help students to understand the scientific and technological context of the situation they are confronted with.
• Strategy: This course will help students to demonstrate scientific precision and a critical mind.
• Implementation: This course will train the student to take into account the scientific, technological and entrepreneurial dimensions of the situation they are confronted with.
• Implementation: This course will exercise students in the ability to take advantage of data digitalization. (MBA excepted)
• Quality and Performance Control: This course will help students to plan and implement the performance and quality control in a company, an organization or a project.
• Quality and Performance Control: This course will develop students' ability to use the appropriate analytical tools when analysing a complex management situation.
• Communication: This course will allow students to improve their proficiency in one foreign languages (among the 3 languages required by the program).
• Adaptability: This course will encourage students to be curious and to show a scientific precision of academic level.

• Acquire a basic knowledge about strategic, tactical, and operational problems of supply chain management.
• Understand the effects of supply chain management decisions on a firm's performance.
• Understand the difficulties of supply chain management.
• Acquire a basic knowledge about the quantitative methods and techniques of decision aid used in supply chains.
• To be able to solve elementary logistical problems using these techniques.
• To be able to recognize the situations where these techniques can be used as decision making tools and to interpret correctly the conclusions which can be derived using these techniques.
• Understand the limitations of these techniques.
• To be able to use tools like AIMMS and Excel to treat logistical problems.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Basic notions of mathematics, statistics, and operations research models

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Lectures
Discussions
Exercise sessions: A computer lab session is organized to familiarize students with the modeling tool AIMMS. The basic objective of this session is to assist students in their group project. Classical and interactive exercise sessions are organized to prepare students to the written exam. Students are also provided with some numerical exercises and their solutions through the virtual campus Lo@ as the chapters are treated during the semester.
Invited speakers: A session is devoted to the presentations of invited speakers working in supply chain management related domains. The aim of the session is to inform students about the carrier opportunities and the responsibilities of supply chain specialists.
Simulation game: A special computer lab session is organized to play the "Wood Supply Game" which is designed to make students aware of the dynamics of supply chains and to illustrate the bullwhip effect.
Group project: Students are wanted to analyze a realistic logistical problem (which is by definition more challenging than the exercises studied during the course) using mathematical programming techniques and tools like AIMMS and Excel.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Face-to-face

Recommended or required readings

Documents that can be found on the virtual campus Lol@:
1. Syllabus: The course notes and the PowerPoint presentations used during the lectures can be found on the virtual campus Lol@. Students are wanted to be in possession of these documents during the lectures.
2. Exercises: Students are provided with some numerical exercises, their solutions, and multiple choice tests that they can use to practice their knowledge and to prepare themselves for the written exam as the chapters are treated during the semester.
Recommended references :
[1] Simchi-Levi D., Kaminsky P. and E. Simchi-Levi, Designing and Managing the Supply Chain: Concepts, Strategies and Case Studies, McGraw-Hill, 2nd edition, Boston, 2003.
[2] Chopra S. and P. Meindl, Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning and Operation, Printice Hall, 3rd edition, New Jersey, 2007.

Assessment methods and criteria

Group project (~20%): Students work in small groups of two or three students. For the second session, if the concerned student wants to resubmit a project (alone this time), he/she has to contact the professor. If such a request is not received until an acceptable date, the project grade obtained in the first session is automatically taken into account to calculate the second session grade of the course.
Written exam (~80%): The written exam is composed of two parts.The questions of the first part are similar to the numerical exercises studied during the course. The second part is composed of 10 multiple choice theoretical questions. In the second session, an oral exam can be organized instead of a written one, depending on the number of students.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

The course is given during the second semester.
The course is given in English.

Contacts

Lecturer:
Yasemin ARDA (yasemin.arda@uliege.be)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the May-June 2020 session

Teaching methods implemented : distance-learning

The course notes and the PowerPoint presentations of all the chapters that will be covered in the final exam are available on the virtual campus Lol@.
For the chapter "Managing Inventories in Supply Chains" studied in distance learning mode, an introductory video, the slides adapted to distance learning (with detailed explications), some numerical exercises, and their solutions are available on Lol@.
For the chapter "Material Requirements Planning" studied in distance learning mode, the slides adapted to distance learning (with detailed explications), some numerical exercises, and their solutions are available on Lol@.
Questions related to the chapter notes, PowerPoint presentations, and exercises are answered through e-mail.
Lifesize sessions are organized to answer questions related to the group project.
Given the circumstances, the last chapter "Value of Information in Supply Chains" is removed from the curriculum and the simulation game session, related to this chapter, is not organized. The session devoted to the presentations of invited speakers is not organized to allow students to concentrate on the essentials of the course material.

Assessment subjects

The final exam will cover the following chapters:
Chapters studied in face-to-face mode: Introduction to Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Network Design, Distribution Strategies in Supply Chains, Designing Products and Production Systems, Production Process Design and Facility Layout, Aggregate Production Planning.
Chapters studied in distance learning mode: Managing Inventories in Supply Chains, Material Requirements Planning (except the section "Order Promising").
Students are not responsible for the last chapter "Value of Information in Supply Chains".

Assessment methods

The grading policy is kept unchanged:
Group project (20%): The submission deadline of the group project is Friday, May 8, as already announced. The group project grade will account for 20% of the final grade also in the second session. For the second session, if a student wants to resubmit a project (alone this time), he/she has to contact the professor until July 15. If such a request is not received until July 15, the project grade obtained in the first session will be automatically taken into account to calculate the second session grade of the course.
Written exam (80%): The final exam will be organized as an online written exam that will be composed of two main parts. In the first part, students will face four questions with open answers, similar to the numerical exercises studied during the course. There will be a limited time to answer each question and an additional time to take a photo of (or to scan) the answer sheet, to transform the obtained file into a PDF file, and to upload the PDF file to the system. The second part will be composed of multiple-choice theoretical questions, similar to the ones studied during face-to-face sessions using Wooclap. Students will have a total limited duration to answer those multiple-choice questions.
More detailed information regarding the online written exam will be available on Lol@:
http://lola.hec.uliege.be/course/view.php?id=342

Contacts

Yasemin ARDA (yasemin.arda@uliege.be)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the Aug-Sept 2020 session

Assessment subjects

The final exam will cover the following chapters:
Chapters studied in face-to-face mode: Introduction to Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Network Design, Distribution Strategies in Supply Chains, Designing Products and Production Systems, Production Process Design and Facility Layout, Aggregate Production Planning.
Chapters studied in distance learning mode: Managing Inventories in Supply Chains, Material Requirements Planning (except the section "Order Promising").
Students are not responsible for the last chapter "Value of Information in Supply Chains".

Assessment methods

The grading policy is kept unchanged:
Group project (20%): For the second session, if a student wants to resubmit a project (alone this time), he/she has to contact the professor until July 15. If such a request is not received until July 15, the project grade obtained in the first session will be automatically taken into account to calculate the second session grade of the course.
Final exam (80%): The final exam will be organized as an online oral exam on Thursday, August 20, using the video conference system Lifesize.
More information about the oral exam will be communicated direclty to the concerned students.

Contacts

Yasemin ARDA (yasemin.arda@uliege.be)

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