The Advantages of a Supply Chain Management Course to an Engineer

The Advantage of a Supply Chain Management Course to an Engineer

Winston Pinto

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology

Abstract

The subject of logistics and supply chain management, though at first seems to be mostly business oriented and commerce related, has more to it than one would imagine. Also, most think that engineers don’t have the expertise or are more technical, rather than managerial, to handle the area of supply chain, with its focus on product development, sourcing, production and logistics. But, in contrast, all these aspects that make the core structures of supply chain management and logistics, equally require an analytical approach, with use of mathematical models, calculations, forecasting and so forth, which is a whole new science that has overlapped the fields of both engineering and commerce alike.

Keywords: supply chain, logistics, commerce, engineering, mathematical models

The Advantage of a Supply Chain Management Course to an Engineer

The course of mechanical engineering that I took for my undergraduate degree would have been monotonous and tedious for me, if not for the ample number of business and commerce related electives I had chosen to complete my course, out of the interest I had in the business side of the industry. In my country, the engineers’ role is zoned out from those that handle financial and management interests of the company. This made me want to be as familiar as I could to the operations of the non-engineering areas of a company that included human resource and company economics.

A Greater Advantage

As a scholar of one of the many disciplines of engineering, I realize that with the experience and the skills developed over the course of my undergraduate degree, it puts me to a greater advantage of handling and understanding the issues of supply chain, than those from of a purely commerce related business administration background. But it shouldn’t be ignored that they too are exposed and taught the same analytical approaches required to administer the matters of supply chain management and logistics. And as an engineer, it requires the acquiring of a fundamental knowledge that is offered by both fields, to add value in dealing with supply chain issues.

No Short of Options

The sphere of influence in the art of supply chain management environs a number of roles from manufacturing, distribution, transportation, customer satisfaction, logistics, sourcing, inventory control, asset development, infrastructure handling and so on and so forth, making it so broad and vast that this very fact, allows for me as an engineer to grasp whatever is in my field of competence to develop and work on, to maybe someday reach a professional level of expertise in my own career.

More the Knowledge, Better the Experience. This course in supply chain management and logistics will be an addition to the fundamental knowledge of business that have crossed my path in the hunt for knowledge and enhancing expertise. Also, the resources that this course offers will help me to direct myself in the working on skills pertaining to management and business oversight. And if I were to ever be in a position in an engineering firm that requires me to administer or manage, then this course would provide me the exposure to the issues that I would encounter in the field of supply chain management.

SCM course at IENG592. The lessons included in the class would also play a major role in helping me tackle with issues on business-oriented projects at a future firm that I would be working at. The chapter on producing goods and services has explained to me the strategies involved in production processes and the different layouts for factory planning, which would be important for a firm planning to implement a new production facility. Also, from the chapter on demand management, understanding the critical importance of outbound-to-customer logistics systems, techniques on forecasting, and balancing of supply and demand, has helped me hone on problem solving skills and helped me understand the potential of applying it to tasks in a firm I would be working in.

Two sciences at work. A visible natural progression seen in firms, is that engineers are slowly exposed to management as they move up the corporate ladder, and having a technical expertise complemented with skills from a business-oriented course, would help utilize the full intelligence and thinking process of the engineer. As Liezl Smith puts it, in the article engineers can play an important role in the supply chain profession, “Engineers can fit into any role if they are prepared to make a slight shift from pure technicalities and embrace the wider business challenges.” [1]. I would conclude with the same message, that this where an engineering degree coupled with a business-oriented course could prepare one with the right elements for a supply chain career.