* Know the important role and nature of Supply Chain Operations in (international) Business
* Every topic is connected to one or multiple research papers and fully discussed during the tutorials
* Apply and Develop Techniques for understanding, design, management and optimisation of different supply chain decisions and processes
* Understand and judge the role and functioning of quantitative models for decison making in the management of various Supply Chain decision and processes
* Derive managerial decisions based on the outcome of those models
* Adopt a critical view on different Supply Chain decisions and processes supported by the academic literature
* Introduce generic algorithms and heuristics that can be applied to a variety of problems
* Company case in which students all take a different role and get different pieces of information
* They need to communicate and come to a single decision
* Present results in written form, adjusted to a non-specialist audience and give recommendations
* Optionally: rewrite business report to a presentation and share with a non-specialist audience
* During casework within a team students are assigned different roles and they need to communicate effectively to come to a decision
* Work in teams on multiple cases and facilitations
* React on facilitations of other students by giving constructive feedback

The course Supply Chain Operations deals with the design, management and improvement of the processes that create a firm's primary services and products. Topics include scheduling, facility location, sales & operations planning, inventory control, and supply chain collaboration. The course combines theory and exercises with several cases and recent research articles from the manufacturing and service industry.

Literature will consist of recent research articles as well as case studies that will be made available. A list of textbooks on Operations Management is given in the course manual for additional reading/basic concepts.

This course is in transition for the master Business Research.
See the Master Education and Examination Regulations for more information.

The following rule applies to master Business Research students who started the programme prior to academic year 2024-2025.
TRANSITIONAL REGULATION (EBC4016):
The master Business Research has been discontinued.
Courses of the Business Research master’s programme will continue to be offered until and including academic year 2025-2026 with exam opportunities running until and including 2026-2027.


PREREQUISITES:
* Basic knowledge of statistics, probability and simulation; knowledge of Linear Programming and familiarity with Excel and the Solver plugin (as e.g. from the courses "Quantitative Methods" and "Operations Management" from the Bachelor International Business).
* A previous course on Operations Management will be useful.
* An advanced level of English.