Duration
30h Th
Number of credits
| Master in management (120 ECTS) | 5 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the second semester
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
This course is composed of two basic parts.
The first part concentrates on sales and operations management methods and techniques that are designed to achieve greater operational efficiency both in industrial and service organizations. This first part starts with an overview of time series forecasting methods and presents tactical level production planning problems that are at the heart of sales and operations planning (S&OP) systems. The operational level lot-sizing problems, which are the core decision-making problems of all the material requirements planning (MRP) systems, are considered just after. At the very operational level, scheduling deals with the allocation of resources to tasks over given time periods with the goal of optimizing one or more objectives. Scheduling is a decision-making process that is used on a regular basis in many manufacturing and service industries. The course presents structurally different scheduling problems. The course also gives a general overview of the just-in-time (JIT) philosophy and the pull production control techniques associated with JIT practices like Kanban policies. Compared to push production control systems (like MRP systems), pull production control systems tend to limit the maximum amount of work-in-process inventory in the system.
The second part of the course concentrates on the role of purchasing and strategic importance of purchasing decisions in supply chain management. It gives an overview of the purchasing management process steps (determining specifications, supplier selection and supplier assessment, negotiation and contracting,...). The course studies topics such as the link between purchasing and business strategy, contract management, benefits and risks of outsourcing, supplier management (how to asses supplier performance, how to get better performance from suppliers,...), and how to develop a sustainable sourcing strategy.
The course is carried as a series of lectures and case studies. Moreover, group projects aim to familiarize students with real world purchasing, sales, and operations management problems.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
The specific objectives of the course are:
- Deepen knowledge in material flow management.
- To be able to solve frequently faced problems of production and material flow management.
- To be able to recognize the situations where production and material flow management methods can be used as decision making tools and to interpret correctly the conclusions which can be derived using these methods.
- To be able to make critical analysis of these different methods.
- Understand the advantages and limitations of these kinds of approaches for real world applications.
- To be able to conduct detailed analysis, drive conclusions, and propose original improvement opportunities for real world logistical systems using these methods.
- Understand the strategic importance of purchasing decisions in supply chain management.
- To be able to make critical analysis of different purchasing strategies.
- To be able implement methods for increasing supplier collaboration.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Basic concepts of supply chain management, production planing, and inventory management
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Lectures
Case studies
Group projects
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Face-to-face : Students are wanted to participate in all the sessions (10 × 3 hours).
Recommended or required readings
Documents that can be found on the virtual campus Lol@:
1. The PowerPoint presentations used during the lectures will be available on the virtual campus Lola@.
2. Articles, book chapters, case studies.
Assessment methods and criteria
Individual examination (~ 50 - 60 %): A writen exam or an oral exam is organized depending on the number of students.
Case stuides and group projects (~ 40 - 50 %): The projects are prepared in groups of three to four students.
Each student has an opportunity to evaluate the contribution of his/her teammates to group projects during the semester by filling a peer evaluation. Taking these peer evaluations into account as well as the participation in class along the year, professor may decide, by a justifiable opinion, to give different grades to students of a same team. Motivation must take into account criteria such as quality of work different from other team members, a greater or lesser involvement in the mission.
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 grades obtained in the first session are automatically taken into account to calculate the second session grade of the course.
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
The course is given during the second semester.
The course is given in English.
Contacts
Veronique FRANÇOIS (veronique.francois@uliege.be)
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 first part of the course, mainly teached before the COVID-19 situation, and which concentrates on operations planning topics, ends with the "Scheduling" Chapter which has been a bit shortened compared to the initially planned material and whose supports are course notes in the form of slides, a podcast, a scientific article and corrected exercises.
For the second part of the course, students are invited to study the material as explained on the lol@ platform, which includes book chapters, a study guide detailing the relative importance of the book sections, one scientific article, and corrected exercises.
Optional Q&A sessions in small groups are organized each week during the original time slot of the course, with the Lifesize tool, for students who wish to ask their questions, in particular about the course exercises or about the group projects.
Assessment subjects
All the material made available on lol@ (the material seen in class or taught with distance learning as described above, as well as homework and exercises) is an examination subject, as well as the content of the group project.
Assessment methods
The course evaluation will be performed via:
- an oral exam accounting for 60% of the final grade,
- a group project (with peer evaluation as initially described) accounting for 40% of the final grade.
Contacts
Véronique François (veronique.francois@uliege.be)
Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the Aug-Sept 2020 session
Assessment subjects
The examination topics are the same as those of the first session: all the material made available on lol@ (the material seen in class or taught with distance learning, incuding homework, readings, and exercises) is an examination subject, as well as the content of the group project.
Assessment methods
The course evaluation will be performed via:
- an oral exam accounting for 60% of the final grade,
- the grade of the first session's group project accounting for 40% of the final grade.
Contacts
Véronique François (veronique.francois@uliege.be)