Integrating Design For Supply Chain Research Into A Graduate Supply Chain Modeling Course – A Collaborative Approach

An ongoing research project addresses the problem of how to effectively synchronize product design and supply chain design for new and existing products resulting in not only a good product design, but a supply chain that is cost effective, minimizes lead time and ensures quality. The research investigates the impacts of product design and redesign on the supply chain structure. The aim is to quantify those impacts so that they can be used in the product design phase to better understand the tradeoffs between the benefits and costs of different supply chain alternatives. This collaborative research effort between the National Science Foundation Center for e-Design (CED) and the National Science Foundation Center for Engineering Logistics and Distribution (CELDi) will result in a synergy that integrates the expertise from each center examining this extremely complex problem, which is referred to as Design for Supply Chain (DFSC). Results from this project are being incorporated real-time into an existing graduate course being taught at the Oklahoma State University entitled Supply Chain Modeling. This course is a third-semester graduate course where students must have a background in supply chain strategy, optimization modeling and discrete-event simulation modeling. The aim of the course is for the students to work as a development team that designs and develops an integrated user interface, database, optimization and simulation prototype for the purpose of analyzing supply chain structures. In the most recent semester, the class has expanded its scope to deal with the DFSC problem. The results of the class can be used as a test platform for researchers and practitioners to make design decisions that create better, more flexible and cost effective supply chains. This paper will focus on the integration of the research into the Supply Chain Modeling course, discuss outcomes, and the next steps of this ongoing effort.