Launch Your Career in a Growing Field
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts employment of logisticians to grow 30% between 2020 to 2030 and operations research analysts as much as 27%.
Global supply chains affect our lives every day, supplying consumers with basic products and goods. Rapid shifts in consumer demand lead to panic buying and shortages, and supply chain managers, professionals, and logisticians are in high demand.
Enrolling as a supply chain management major, you’ll learn value-driven supply chain management and analytical methods ready to apply to real operational challenges facing our world today.
What is Supply Chain Management?
Supply Chain Management is a cross-functional discipline involving the movement of products, the use of business resources, the flow of information, and the deployment of services in the chain. These activities often include procurement, logistics, assembly, production, sales and marketing, distribution, delivery, and customer support. In essence, the supply chain is the process that focuses on producing and distributing the product and dealing with the suppliers and logistics to ensure the product gets to the market and its customers.
How does it help companies?
Managing a supply chain is concerned with the effective integration of suppliers, factories, warehouses, stores, and shipping arrangements to ensure products are distributed along the chain to their customers in the right quantity and at the right time. With increasing competition around the globe, supply chain management is both a challenge and an opportunity for companies.
Why is it important now?
The pandemic highlighted the importance of supply chains. As the virus spread and outbreaks shut down different regions, the global supply chains that supply US consumers with basic goods were catastrophically affected. Rapid shifts in consumer demand led to panic buying and shortages that logistics managers struggled to maintain. We’ve seen throughout the pandemic, the vital importance of the supply chain manager. In 2020, supply chain managers, supply chain professionals, and logisticians were called into service, not just for their companies, but also for the good of the economy at large.
How does a bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management help my business career?
A bachelor’s degree in supply chain management brings together concepts from finance, economics, and logistics. Courses equip students with skills in these areas and build organizational, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills. Most industries need experts in supply chain management to help plan and guide their logistics programs. Students will learn supply management through simulated applications, case analyses, special projects, and will gain hands-on experience integrating supply chain management concepts to optimize business performance outcomes. Having a strong understanding of supply chain management concepts and the ability to recommend improvements will be part the toolbox of all our business students.
Faculty Spotlight: Trevor James
“I try not to just teach the material but make it applicable for the students. That way they are able to use what they learned in the classroom the next day at work or in their daily lives.”
Flexible Options & Curriculum
Classes are offered evenings and online to meet the needs of a busy schedule. A supportive environment prepares students for a successful transition from classroom to workforce.
Students will apply supply chain management theory to business situations and simulations, gaining industry and professional experience while focusing on an area of specialization.
Business classes complement the curriculum including ethics, marketing and leadership, and strategic management synthesis.
With three new courses in SCM, students can complete their degree.
Exciting Career Paths for Graduates
Logistician: Ensuring goods and products make it from the supplier to the consumer as efficiently as possible, overseeing purchasing, transportation and warehousing.
Operations manager: Overseeing the production and delivery of goods to the customer, managing purchasing, manufacturing, storage, transportation and adherence to safety rules and regulations.
Purchasing manager, buyer or purchasing agent: Buying goods or contract services to use or sell to other customers.
Supply chain manager: Coordinating all or part of an organization’s supply chain from communicating and working with suppliers to drafting and maintaining policies related to inventory.
In-demand Skills
Students acquire highly applicable skills, tools, and competencies, including:
- Understand supply chain components, terminology, techniques, and challenges of globalization.
- Learn how supply chains influence competitiveness, ethics, and sustainability.
- Know the role purchasing, operations, and logistics play in the integrated supply chain.
- Describe the advantages and disadvantages of technology in the supply chain.
- Apply metrics to assess the performance of a supply chain to differentiate materials management and logistics while understanding the interrelation between them.
- Explain key concepts that are vital to the management of supply chains, quality control, product development, and procurement.
- Gain experience with complex strategic and tactical global supply chain issues and develop skills to address challenges.