Basics of Supply Chain Management

This is an introductory course for production and inventory management personnel and CPIM candidates. This course provides basic definitions and concepts for planning and controlling the flow of materials into, through, and out of an organization. It explains fundamental relationships among the activities that occur in the supply chain from suppliers to customers. In addition, the course addresses types of manufacturing systems, forecasting, master planning, material requirements planning, capacity management, production activity control, purchasing, inventory management, distribution, quality management, and Just-in-Time manufacturing.

Master Planning of Resources

In this course, students explore processes used to: develop sales and operations plans; identify and assess internal and external demand for forecasting requirements; and effect on achievable master schedule consistent with business policies, objectives, and resource constraints.  The course focuses on developing and validating a plan of supply, relating management of demand to the environment, and developing and validating the master schedule. 

In addition, the course encompasses concepts for transforming sales, marketing, and business requirements into a feasible and economic operations plan in various business environments.  It also addresses concepts and methodologies for managing projected and actual demands from distribution networks and external customers.  Finally, the course presents methods for integrating sales and operations plans, demand forecasts, and customer demand into a specific mater schedule.
 

Detailed Scheduling and Planning

The course also introduces another material planning technique, material-dominated scheduling, which is applicable to process industries and other mature production environments.  The course explains capacity requirements planing in detail and introduces other capacity planning techniques, including processor-dominated scheduling.

Execution and Control of Operation

This course focuses on three main areas: prioritizing and sequencing work; executing work plans, implementing controls, and reporting activity results; and evaluating and providing feedback on performance. The course explains techniques for scheduling and controlling production and process operations. It also addresses the execution of quality initiatives and continuous improvement plans as well as the control and handling of inventories. Finally, the course presents techniques for evaluating performance and collecting data for effective feedback.

Strategic Management of Resources

In this course, students explore the relationship of existing and emerging processes and technologies to manufacturing strategy and supply chain-related functions.  The course addresses three main topics: aligning resources with the strategic plan, configuring and integrating operating processes to support the strategic plan, and implementing change.  For maximum comprehension of course content, students should be familiar with the information and concepts presented in other CPIM modules before taking this course.