Supply Chain Planning and Strategy

This course is part of the edX Professional Certificate program Certified Supply Chain Analyst (CSCA), offered by ISCEA. This course prepares you for the ISCEA Certified Supply Chain Analyst (CSCA) Exam on edX and is a requirement for becoming ISCEA certified. To become an ISCEA Certified Supply Chain Analyst (CSCA), you must complete all three preparatory courses and successfully pass the CSCA Exam.

Every fortune 500 company relies on their supply chain to keep goods and services flowing into the marketplace, but supply chain processes are only as good as the people who keep them running. Certified supply chain professionals that truly understand the relationship between a company's competitive advantage and its supply chain strategy are getting the best employment opportunities.

This course is designed to introduce foundational supply chain topics that are relevant to make both strategic and tactical decisions. Strategic decisions covered in the course are the ones required to achieve a fit between competitive strategy and supply chain strategy. Tactical decisions covered, are the ones aimed to develop a plan to balance demand with supply.

It all starts with the management of supply chain flows and the linkages between financial and operational measures. Next a supply chain strategy is developed around a competitive strategy considering both efficiency and responsiveness. And finally, the essentials of forecasting are covered in the context of demand management and sales and operations planning - S&OP.

The course is part of the ISCEA CSCA - Certified Supply Chain Analyst - Internationally Recognized Certificate.

ISCEA, the international supply chain education alliance was the first organization on the globe certifying supply chain managers, and it remains the worldwide authoritative resource for Supply Chain career validation with thousands of certificate holders commanding top-tier salaries

CSCA01.1 Supply Chain Overview

CSCA01.1.1 Supply chain essentials

• Supply Chains
• Flows in a Supply Chain

CSCA01.1.2 Financial performance

• The Objective of a Supply Chain
• Financial Measures
• Linking Financial Measures to Supply Chain Operation Measures
• Managing the cash flow
• Cash to cash cycle time

CSCA01.1.3 Strategic fit

• Competitive strategy and supply chain strategy
• Framework to attain strategic fit
• Logistical drivers
• Cross Functional Drivers
• Beyond the walls of our own organization

CSCA01.2 Strategy

CSCA01.2.1 Introduction to strategy

• Competitive strategy
• Competitive advantage

CSCA01.2.2 Consistency between competitive strategy and functional strategies

• Typical Functional Strategies
• Supply chain strategy

CSCA01.2.3 Aligning processes with strategy

• Push/Pull Processes

CSCA01.3 Framework for discussion

CSCA01.3.1 Sources of costs and revenues

• Sources of the costs across the supply chain
• Drivers of supply chain performance

CSCA01.3.2 Logistic decisions

• Facilities decisions
• Inventory decisions
• Transportation decisions

CSCA01.3.3 Cross functional decisions

• Information decisions
• Sourcing decisions
• Pricing decisions

CSCA01.4 Fundamental Issues

CSCA01.4.1 Introduction to Sales and Operations Planning

• Demand management issues
• Sales and Operations Planning

CSCA01.4.2 Forecasting

• Introduction to forecasting
• Forecasting example - Data inputs
• Forecasting example - Quantitative models
• Forecast performance

CSCA01.4.3 Introduction to Supply Management

• Supply management terms
• Supply management issues