MSc Supply Chain and Procurement Management

University of Strathclyde

This module aims to introduce students to the practical reality of analysing and solving supply chain management problems in real life. Students explore a series of case studies and real life problems relating to supply chain management (SCM) in a range of industries. At the end of this module students will be able to: apply concepts and principles relevant to the management of supply chains and networks to the analysis of case studies and relatively unstructured problems for a range of industries select and apply appropriate problem-structuring methods, data collection & analysis methods and conceptual models for a given problem in SCM formulate a range of alternative options to deal with a given problem in SCM; to evaluate such options in terms of their feasibility, acceptability, vulnerability, and strategic fit; and to make appropriate recommendations to senior management One of the four assignments consists of a prepared case study that must be tackled by students on an individual basis and is assessed through an individual report. The other three assignments are done on a group basis, assessed by formal business-style presentations as well as written reports.

This module aims to develop a critical understanding of operation, structure and implementation issues around enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as used in industry. Students learn how a typical ERP system works using an up-to-date SAP training package and consider the real-life use of a typical software package within an organisation. The module covers: Business Excellence; What is ERP?; Business Planning and Control; Expected Benefits; How does ERP work?; ERP Pre-Requisites; Selecting the right system; Implementation Planning. At the end of this module students will have a critical understanding of: terminology relating to MRP, ERPII and ERP the benefits and limitations of using ERP systems for making operational, tactical and strategic decisions within businesses, including the ways in which ERP systems may support or hinder decision making at different levels learning to operate and build a product in a SAP environment the scope, implications, logic, critical requirements to facilitate successful implementation of ERP systems, in particular the relationship between ERP systems, other ICT systems, business processes and human factors.

This is a Specialist module. This module aims to provide students with insights into the buyer-seller relationships and the role of the professional buyer. The module covers: Buyer-seller relationships including individual and group behaviours and relationships in procurement scenarios; Advanced Negotiation Techniques (game theory application to procurement); Purchasing organisation including category management and responsibilities, centralised vs decentralised functions; Procurement professionals including corporate responsibility and integrity and risk management; International Purchasing including value for money, fair price and whole life cycle processes, international purchasing, eProcurement and quality management tools in purchasing; Negotiating including traditional vs advanced negotiation and auctions and tendering processes. At the end of this module students will be able to: develop good operating practices and structures that improve the efficiency of the process of buying and determining the building blocks that are essential to this understand the complexity and the changing role of buyers understand the stages of international purchasing have an awareness of the new trends in strategic purchasing management understand the complexity of individual and group behaviours in procurement situations identify the stages in negotiation and prepare a negotiation process.

This module aims to introduce students to the 'softer' aspects of engineering management. Given some key organisational and technological issues, the main focus is to examine the relationship between ?human? elements and change management from an engineering-oriented perspective. At the end of this module students will be able to: discuss key issues in organisation and technology by critically defining and discussing key characteristics of an organisation and evaluating the impact of technology on the workplace of the future understand modern people management concepts and practices by evaluating leadership and motivation techniques using analytical approaches and will demonstrate critical understanding of the role of people in a modern organisation identify the challenges and consequences of change, including defining and discussing the skills required to handle organisational change and the drivers and obstacles towards organisational change understand the impact of organisational and technological issues on people when managing changes. This includes identifying drivers and obstacles from organisational, technological and human perspectives using analytical methods as well as creating strategies to help implement changes.

The class is devoted to the concepts and approaches to effective performance measurement and management at an organisational level across the public and private sectors. Performance Measurement and Management (PMM) is one of the key factors for survival and prosperity of business systems. The module covers: The strategic, organisational level of PMM while providing the essential knowledge and skills at the technical level. The module outlines the roots of some common problems in measuring and managing performance in organisations. It will discuss PMM from the stakeholder, customer, comparative, operations and integrative perspectives. The class will be concluded by discussing implementation and managerial issues in measuring business performance. At the end of this module students will be able to: appreciate new challenges and conditions of the business world and their effect on PMM systems appreciate the importance of stakeholders and their influence on the success or failure of a PMM system be familiar with and apply a range of performance measurement systems/tools in a real situation understand the most recent challenges in the field of PMM critically investigate the PM activities in organisations.

The aim of the individual project is to allow students to combine the skills learned in other modules of the course and apply them within a significant project in a specific area of design, manufacture, or engineering management. This will be achieved through students carrying out work into a particular topic relating to their course and preparing a dissertation that documents the project. On completion of the module the student is expected to be able to: define a valid project in a cutting-edge field of study relevant to the student?s degree ? with an appropriate methodology and work plan for the project plan, manage and complete project, involving where appropriate technical analysis and independent critical thinking. This involves giving a thorough, logical and critical review of the subject matter; using appropriate tools, processes and levels of analysis in the project and applying project management techniques to manage a successful project document their project using suitable presentation techniques (such as language, figures, writing, layout, structure etc.); showing clear evidence of the value of the project and its outcomes and describing the project with clarity.

This module aims to provide students with skills and knowledge relating to the use of engineering practices in Project Management with particular respect to the project triple constraint: time, cost and quality. The module covers: project management principles, concepts and processes; organisational influences, project stakeholders and project lifecycle; project scoping such as project definition, project objectives, project deliverables, and work breakdown structure; Project planning and scheduling: definition of events, activities and nodes, network diagram, analysis of critical path, PERT method and use of industry standard software packages; Project controlling: cost estimate, budget setting, risk identification and assessment and contingency planning. At the end of this module students will be able to: demonstrate a good understanding of project management practices and practical skills to manage project scope ? including translating project specifications into work packages define and schedule project activities using tools such as critical path and PERT methods; estimate cost and determine budget using analogous and three-point estimating methods; identify and control quality standards using cost of quality and other tools develop a good understanding of the inter-dependency between various project management knowledge areas, such as managing projects under constraints; identifying and assessing risks and developing contingency plans understand the importance of project stakeholders and their impact on project management, including managing stakeholder relationships.

This is a Specialist module. The class is devoted to the concepts and approaches to effective performance measurement and management at an organisational level. This module focuses on the different approaches to performance measurement and management (PMM) commonly used across the public and private sectors. This module covers: the use of spreadsheets for forecasting, simulation, optimisation, data analysis, and to support technical report writing; different types of forecasting techniques; method application using spreadsheet models and principles of effective computer programming through the development of macros within spreadsheets. At the end of this module students will be able to: create simple but appropriately organised spreadsheet models for complex problems, then use the spreadsheet to support traditional operational research techniques such as forecasting, optimisation and simulation describe the main categories of forecasting technique and their data requirements construct and interpret forecasts using smoothing methods and decompositional analysis calculate and interpret forecast errors to track accuracy of forecasts understand effective forecasting systems, basic principles of computer programming and VBA for developing macros within Excel.

This is a Specialist module. This module aims to provide students insights into Strategic Purchasing Management, focussing on the Excellent Purchasing Model (EXP), which summarises purchasing functions and processes at strategic, tactical and operational levels. The module covers: Purchasing management including impact on a company?s competitiveness, Balance sheet and P&L account, contract management; Excellent Purchasing Model to highlight a controlled process for defining purchasing management including Total Cost of Ownership; Operational processes of the Excellent Purchasing Model including legal implications and ethics in procurement, corporate social responsibility, supplier selection, implementation and management and purchasing BSC & KPI management; Category Management strategy and development including an introduction to Kraljic Matrix and supplier/customer power matrix. At the end of this module students will be able to: understand why procurement is a strategic influence of an organisation and determine the building blocks that are essential to this demonstrate how purchasing systems may facilitate decision making at organisational levels identify how the purchasing strategy is defined and deployed and to prepare a strategic purchasing plan identify the skills and attitudes necessary to build a strategic procurement structure and the functions that make it imperative to the organisation.

This module aims to provide students with a critical understanding of the fundamental building blocks of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and e-Supply Chains from a strategic perspective with a view to developing their capabilities in modelling, analysing, diagnosing and re-designing/improving supply chains. It covers Understanding the Supply Chain; Strategies alignment; Supply Chain performance; Supply Chain benchmarking; Sourcing decisions; Supply Chain network design; Sustainability in the supply chain and case studies. At the end of this module students will be able to: display an understanding of the fundamental building blocks of supply chains, including terminology; factors associated with SCM (business, technological, logistical and legal factors) and the relationship between traditional management functions and technology (such as marketing, purchasing, IT etc) demonstrate a critical understanding of how to analyse and diagnose supply chains from a strategic perspective by modelling supply chains; analysing supply chain practices and performance and drawing up supply chain improvement/development strategies for a chosen business display an understanding of sustainability issues in modern supply chains including key concepts; methods to assess sustainability and the ability to propose strategic improvements for the sustainability of supply chains.

This module aims to provide students with an in-depth knowledge and understanding of those key concepts, methods, tools and techniques that are fundamental to effective and efficient running of supply chain operations from suppliers? suppliers to customers? customers. The module covers an Introduction to supply chain operations; Demand management; Master planning; Material management; Capacity management; Inventory management; Distribution management; and Case studies. On completion the participants will be able to design and manage operational supply chain planning, scheduling and controlling systems for complex and disparate operations. In particular, students will: Understand the basics of supply chain operations in relation to planning, operating, scheduling and controlling, including knowledge of supply chain operation practices (demand management, master planning, material management, capacity management and inventory management); understanding the impact of supply chain operation practices within commercial and social contexts and global trends in supply chain operation practices Identify and assess different methods, tools and techniques for managing plans, operations and materials of end-to-end supply chains Demonstrate the ability to apply those methods, tools and techniques in different contexts, including manufacturing and service sectors, with a critical awareness of drivers and obstacles in real life and the ability to produce sensible solutions to overcome them.

This module aims to prepare students to be state-of-the-art business analysts in the era of big data. It gives them knowledge of and ability to use business analytics tools to make sense of both qualitative and quantitative data, identify the main messages in those data and report such messages back to decision-makers appropriately in order to help them to make better decisions.

This module aims to introduce students to modelling techniques that can be used to help support decision-makers. Business simulations are one such important modelling technique. This class focuses on two specific business simulation techniques; discrete-event simulation and system dynamics. This module covers: a rational approach to simulation using a number of examples from manufacturing and service operations; the use of probabilistic distributions in simulation where the emphasis is on ?relevance for use? rather than the underlined statistical theories and techniques; basic and advanced techniques of Simul8 (a popular DES software); complex business problems through the construction of causal loop diagrams and computer software used specifically for system dynamics modelling.

This module aims to introduce students to statistically planned experiments and industrial measurements. The module covers: Basic concepts of quality such as inspection and parameter design; Statistically planned experiments including two-level and three-level factorial experiments; Taguchi?s contribution to quality improvement including location/dispersion analysis and strategy for robust design; Test and measurement system including signals processing, DAQ hardware and software and Graphical programming (LabView).

This module aims to introduce students to the principles of Lean and Six Sigma. From Continuous Improvement approaches to organisational requirements, the module covers the critical success factors needed to support sustainable and effective business transformation.

This module aims to provide students with an understanding of strategic aspects of finance in relation to the decision-making process and analysis necessary for efficient management of organisations. The module covers: Financial Management; Accounting and Planning; Cost Engineering ? including classification of costs and costing methods; Performance Evaluation; Financial Ratios; Financial Analysis ? including investment decisions and investment analysis and other aspects of Financial Management such as risk and project management.

This module aims to introduce statistical modelling to support business and management decisions. The module provides a basis for students to learn a range of widely used methods ranging from effective presentation of data to development of sophisticated statistical models.

This module aims to introduce the fundamental techniques of risk management, risk-informed decision making and the general principles of risk analysis and its place in risk management, as well as the chance to develop skills in applying these methods to a variety of engineering examples.

This module considers the distinctive characteristics of Service Operations Management and how these differ from manufacturing. Through the modelling of service operations, the module illustrates how the different types of service operations can be effectively and efficiently managed.

This module aims to provide a series of strategic frameworks for managing high-technology businesses. The main focus is on the acquisition of a set of powerful analytical tools which are critical for the development of a technology strategy as an integral part of business strategy. These tools can provide a guiding framework for deciding which technologies to invest in, how to structure those investments and how to anticipate and respond to the behaviour of competitors, suppliers, and customers. The course should be of particular interest to those interested in managing a business for which technology is likely to play a major role, and to those interested in consulting or venture capital.

This module aims to introduce students to the theories and principles of Systems Thinking. The module also introduces the methods, tools and techniques for modelling, analysing, improving and designing systems in a variety of organisations including industrial, commercial and public sector. The module covers: Systems theory, concepts and approaches; Hard and soft systems analysis and systems dynamics; Systems and organisational performance ? including leadership in a systems environment and ?design? in a systems environment and Practical application of Systems Thinking.