I'll be posting my completed courses here. I've gone through quite a few in the last couple of years. I'll start posting my thoughts about the courses and the material. I'm hoping by going back through them again it'll help to cement what I've learned.
This should also serve as a bit of a review of each one as well. These are all edX courses. I have previously done a few courses from Udacity and one from Coursera. At this point both of those sites have added and changed quite a bit so there's not much I can comment on anymore. When edX along with MIT released their pilot program of a possible blended Masters program I was excited. They were offering five online courses that would then allow you to apply to their school and complete a Masters with only one extra semester. So I jumped into trying the Supply Chain Management MicroMasters.
The first course in the program was Supply Chain Fundamentals.
“This course is a survey of the fundamental analytic tools, approaches, and techniques used in the design and operation of logistics systems and integrated supply chains. The material is taught from a managerial perspective, with an emphasis on where and how specific tools can be used to improve the overall performance and reduce the total cost of a supply chain. We place a strong emphasis on the development and use of fundamental models to illustrate the underlying concepts involved in both intra- and inter-company logistics operations.
The three main topic areas we will focus on are: Demand Forecasting, Inventory Management,
and Transportation Planning. While our main objective is to develop and use models to help us
analyze these situations, we will make heavy use of examples from industry to provide
illustrations of the concepts in practice. This is neither a purely theoretical nor a case study
course, but rather an analytical course that addresses real problems found in practice. ”
Overview of topics that were learned
- Demand forecasting: Types, limitations, uses;
- Forecasting metrics: MD, MAD, MSE, RMSE, MPE, MAPE;
- Time Series Analysis: Cumulative, Naive, Moving Average, Level, Trend, Seasonal;
- Exponential Smooth: Simple, Level & Trend, Damped trend model, Mean square error estimate;
- Exponential Smoothing with Holt-Winter: Simple, Holt Model, Seasonality, Double exponential, Normalizing seasonality indices;
- Forecasting using causal analysis: Ordinary least squares linear regression, Model validation, Multiple linear regression, Coefficient of determination, Adjust R^2;
- Forecasting for special cases: Analogous forecasting, New-to-world products (Bass Diffusion model), Intermittent demand (Croston's method);
- Inventory Management: Holding inventory, Inventory classification, Relevant Costs;
- Economic Order Quantity (EOQ): EOQ Model, Optimal order quantity, Optimal time between replenishments, Sensitivity analysis;
- Economic order quantity extensions: Average pipeline inventory, discounts, Finite replenishment;
- Single period inventory models: Marginal analysis, EOQ with planned back-orders, News-vendor model, Profit maximization, Expected profits with salvage and penalty, Expected units short;
- Probabilistic inventory models: Base stock policy, Continuous review policies, Level of service metrics, Cycle service level, Cost per stock out event, Item fill rate, Cost per item short, Inventory performance metrics, Safety stock logic, Periodic review policy;
- Inventory models for multiple items and locations: Aggregation methods, Exchange curves, Cycle stock, safety stock, Power of two formula, Pooled inventory;
- Inventory models for class A and C items: Management by segment, Policies, Disposing of excess inventory;
- Fundamentals of Freight Transportation: Trade-offs between cost and service, Packaging, Transportation networks;
- Lead time variability & mode selection: Impact on inventory, Transportation cost functions, Lead/Transit time reliability;
- One to many distribution: Distribution methods, One to many systems, distance estimation, Estimating tour distance;