Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Ask HN: How to self study management, especially supply chain management?
212 points by caaaadr on March 31, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 49 comments
I recently saw [an HN thread about the bullwhip effect] (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22663332) where [one user discussed](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22664178) their experience in management school with that simulation.

I was curious about investigating more, but I realized that unlike topics like mathematics and computer science, I was having a lot of trouble even finding the search terms to use to find textbooks and syllabi, as I didn't even really know what they teach in management school. Could HN help me find a course of self study on management school? Knowledge of what they teach, or what different specializations train you in would be helpful as well, thank you!




I graduated in international business and logistics 14 years ago, worked at a freight forwarder, customs broker, ocean carrier, and a manufacturer. Broadly, this topic can be broken up into 3 overlapping concerns: - Operations (product, plant, human/physical resources) - Supply Chain (production, network inflows/outflows) - Logistics (warehousing, transportation)

All care about having reliable partners, quality, efficiency, and timing (procurement, production, and fulfillment). I recommend you do a combination of lightweight textbooks for a high level overview, (like Wiley "for dummies") and a few case study style books that provide history and deep context (like "The Goal" and "Lean Thinking" by James Womack). These last two books are classics dealing with physical production. However, don't overlook service operations like healthcare and military which are good examples where the end customers primary concern is strategic procurement and distribution. I don't have any recommendations for these industries but maybe someone else.


> (like "The Goal"...These last two books are classics dealing with physical production.

The Phoenix Project is a 2013 IT/DevOps version of The Goal [0]. It's an easy read that would be a complementary follow up to The Goal. It would help in understanding principles from The Goal outside of physical production.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-pro...


So, to put your summary in a diagram:

         p_1        p_2 
    o_1 -----> o_2 -----> o_3
         v_1        v_2
p: the product

v: the vessel

o: the state, usually implies a location

Operations is largely o, Supply chain is largely the facilitation of p, Logistics is largely the facilitation of v.


I use four areas. BUY, MOVE, STORE and SUPPORT.

The first three relate to your areas - procurement, logistics, operations. The last is things like quality control and Master data.


Thank you for the 3-part breakdown, that helped me make more sense out of the rest of the thread materials having those definitions!

Yeah I think you are right on the strategy of doing an 'overview'/surveyish book and then diving deep


Play rimworld or factoria ..

Only half joking. I think the basic principles of efficient managing can be taught very good through such a game.

It is really fun and challenging, to build up a beautiful flowing process. And then have it all a mess, because a accident happened and a key structure broke down and half your production ran out of storage and the other can't produce. So you adjust and assign and rebuild processes and then a key ressource runs out. So you need to find a new source of supply... So it is all about basic managing and supply chain. How to use the limit resources in the most efficient way and focus grow in a fine tuned manner. And how to keep track of all that in your head.

A different thing is then of course to apply this knowledge in the real world.

And this means mostly choosing, learning and understanding the right software. SAP is (sadly) used a lot. And millions of custom made software ..

I actually believe there is a very big market for someone to come with a better software of managing this. All the solutions I have seen so far, I did not really like. But you have to use what is there and works now.


MIT's beer game is a classic one in supply chain: http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www/SDG/beergame.html


Having had the beer game at MIT, I'd say it's the only action learning experience that is worth something. Fun.


An online management course based on Rimworld would be awesome! :D


I have a masters in supply chain - a large portion of that degree as well as a topic that overlaps math and computer science is operations research [0].

Google has some pretty cool open-source libraries [1] for working with OR type problems as well. Their guide explains some common problems from a high level and should give you some more keywords and topics to dive into as well.

I'd also recommend MIT's SCM course [2], it has a solid curriculum

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research [1] https://developers.google.com/optimization/introduction/over... [2] https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/


Oooh, looks like there's a lot more complex math in this area than I'd initially thought (although I imagine the math that is there is more of the stuff that is used in CS?).

Thank you for the link to that micromasters program, that looks like a great course to try first for SCM, I'll check out other courses that are marked as related on the MOOC page as well


I like what you said in the first line.

Personally, I'm less interested in the 'management' aspect of this topic, and more interested in the "process" or the idea, so to speak.

I think supply chain is a big idea and a big topic in itself, and how you manage it, when put in charge of human labor, in only one part of it.

And I think there is some relation between 'supply chain' and 'concurrency' in CS.


There is a certain tendency I see, especially in recent grads in the SCM, of learning a lot of operations research. Which totally valid, these gals and guys are running circles around me as gar as big data and data science is concerned.

One should not forget so, that supply chains and logistics are still running on a huge amount of physical paper. Process is still king. The basic principles don't change simply because thing become digital. Take a classic Kanban system. That still runs on a piece of cardboard. Using fax to sent Kanban cards around is probably all the amount of digitalization that needs. And Kanbans are still one of the most robust solutions around.

From what I learned about CS so far, both fields are very logical. So go ahead and learn about the idea. Interesting field, and one that can only benefit from innovative solutions!


I recently presented my master's thesis exactly on a process involving kanbans. I implemented a discrete event simulator that compares different dynamic scheduling agent policies of which one is a MIP optimization model. All very cool, but the company still uses paper kanbans and the whole process is far from the so called "industry 4.0". All in all, change costs and the change needs to give enough fruits to justify it.


MIT has a fantastic online SCM micro-masters program: https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/


If you want to learn about business more generally, the kind of generalist stuff that’s in an MBA Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA is a fantastic place to start, and has a recommended book to follow up on each topic it covers if you need more depth.

https://personalmba.com/


Wow that's great, the reviews from Kevin Kelly, David Allen, and Ali Safavi really sealed the deal, I'll read this thank you!


The first go-to book would be this one, if you ask me:

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Managing-Supply-Chain-Stude...

Maybe you can get access to an e-book version of it. I have a more than decade old ediion at home, and while the some case studies and technologies maybe a little but dated, the overall principles haven't changed. And the book itelf is top-notch content. Older editions of eBay or Amazon should be fine, and also a ot cheaper I assume. I brought mine back from a vacation to India.


Reading Goldratt (recommended in other threads here) is a lot more fun than Simchi's book, though.


Yeah, I wouldn't call Simchi fun to read neither. Still a good book covering the basics. I still enjoyed reading it, but I am a strange guy when it comes to SCM.


Hmmm a textbook more on the in-depth side, I'll try this after I read some of that more survey/overview stuff, thanks


Whatever you do, Do Not start playing Factorio.


Suggest disagreeing and committing.

Though committing is not optional once you start.

They call it Cracktorio for a reason.


https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN1845...

That link is the Army Sustainment doctrine. It is a high level generic description on the philosophy of logistics and support for a diversity of operating requirements across a variety of environments.


Wow this looks fascinating, the U.S. Army is probably one of the biggest organizations with very direct consequences for failure in these logistics aspects.

Every once in a while I see HN users post these types of military publications, and a lot of them seem useful. How do you find these in the first place?


Read 'The Goal' by Eli Goldratt - one of the best supply chain books ever written.


This book and "Critical Chain" by the same author are incredible. If you do or interact with any sort of release engineering it's great knowledge to have.


Has anyone made a fan wait of The Goal is that removes all the terrible melodramatic/romantic filler? I don't need to learn how SCM affected someone's sex life.


You could go look up the syllabus for several top programs. Tennessee and Penn State come to mind. Get comfortable with big enterprise software like SAP or Oracle or at the very least NetSuite. You’ll need to understand some finance alongside operational jargon so things like microeconomics would be valuable (Kahn academy has a class). Some topics that you could google just off the top of my head would be sourcing, transportation, manufacturing, inventory management, distribution, sales.... actually maybe you could find some self directed six sigma courses?

edit: here's a coursera course that looks like it covers all the basics: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/supply-chain-manage...


Thanks for that Rutgers SCM MOOC, I'll try it out along with the MITx one.

I'll also look up the syllabi for those programs, good idea.


Came here to mention the same coursera course. It’s a good start.


If you’re interested in a good entry point, undergraduate business business programs often call that first class “Production and Operations Management” or a close variant.

I haven’t been a business student in a very long time, but back then ambitious students would often do a six course semester where they would do a full load at my school and grab POM via distance learning. That school and their POM class still exist.

https://www.athabascau.ca/syllabi/mgsc/mgsc368.php

You’ll be able to get some terms to search for there, find a textbook and I’d bet anything that if you started plugging chapter titles into YouTube, you could find lectures.

I was too busy starting businesses in business school to have been a very good business student so I can’t claim any expertise on subfields within POM. As far as what they teach, it depends a lot on the exact part of POM you get into. Some is pure mathematical analysis but there is a lot of overlap with cost accounting, human resources and marketing. The projection side is part math, part marketing and part guesswork. The costing side gets really deep into accounting and Human Resources. Some subfields focus heavily on union and industrial relations. You’ll find subfields that delve into OH&S for reasons you don’t want to think too deeply about.


> If you’re interested in a good entry point, undergraduate business business programs often call that first class “Production and Operations Management” or a close variant.

I'll try that search term

> You’ll be able to get some terms to search for there, find a textbook and I’d bet anything that if you started plugging chapter titles into YouTube, you could find lectures.

I'll take a look at the syllabus for that Atahabascau course.


I'd recommend starting with the Wikipedia page on Operations Research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research

It's a great summary of the major domains involved in operations research/management science/decision science. It definitely helps with the "what do I even search for" part of your question.


I like that the Wikipedia article has the history included before going into links to more specific topics.

This'll help give me one of those broader level overviews, thanks.


I work on the supply chain, capital expenditure team at an electric car company and I can tell you none of the books listed below will help you. Get an internship or offer to work for someone for free. Supply Chain Management is one of those things that is best learned on the job. You need to 'learn' your supply base/ vendors who do good work, you need to learn how to negotiate things like payment terms instead of just price, how to effectively track you 100+ things you need to buy that day. All the books listed below are great if you are a factory production manager, but will never help you in an entry level supply chain job.


I suppose whether or not these books apply depends a lot on where my life takes me. But you are right about the concrete practice, just like with learning a new programming language, the only way to internalize it is to do a project with it that preferably has a real pressure and deadline, i.e. a job.

I'll have to see if I can try and apply the concepts no matter what industry I'm in.


Look up some Harvard Business Review Case Studies [1] to get some real world examples. Studying high level thoery out of books is pretty worthless IMO. Industries are very specialized and specific. This is really a field that is very difficult to learn without real world experience in it.

1. https://store.hbr.org/case-studies/


Wow there are lot of these, I wonder how to sift between all of them.

This one [1] looks interesting just as a story

[1] = https://store.hbr.org/product/do-you-really-think-we-are-so-...


Check out this demo (Radish34) of a supply chain management scenario brought up by EY and other enterprises involved:

https://docs.baseline-protocol.org/radish34/radish34-explain...


You can find some curated resources on supply chain here: https://learnawesome.org/topics/e0ca877f-7dd4-467a-83b2-efa1...


Echoing recommendations for The Goal & The Phoenix Project. Beyond The Goal is also a great resource. More of a lecture by Goldratt that covers TOC and Critical Chain. He was a very entertaining speaker.


My background is SCM. Still passionate about it although I've shifted tangentially over time. If you just want an overview of the topic, I'd recommend these two books:

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Materials-Management-Ste...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1260084841/ref=dp_ob_neva_mob...

If you're highly technical and would like to learn how to abstract and solve some of the hardest problems in supply chain management, I would actually look into the field of Operations Research. It is basically mathematical modeling and optimization of real world operational and logistics problems. It's so mathematically oriented that it typically is in the mathematics or science departments in universities, as opposed to management. But it is very much an applied specialization of math, directly applicable to supply chain management and other business/logistics areas.

Interestingly, the bullwhip effect is extremely similar to another problem that a lot of people here have a casual interest in: the traveling wave phenomenon of traffic. The requisite similarities are the same. In order for the pattern to appear, there have to be independent actors with cascading delays in the aquisition of information about the future, and a mismatch in the ability to stop production (decelerate) and start production (accelerate). The severity of those traveling waves may change with changes in the severity of the required conditions, but as long as those conditions exist, the traveling waves will always occur.

Interesting consequences also apply. It is mathematically provable that autonomously controlled vehicles cannot get rid of traveling traffic waves. There will always be a delay in information about what lies ahead, whether it is via the limitations of line of sight, or the latency of radio-based communication. And production cars will always stop faster than they accelerate, because stopping has a safety necessity that doesn't exist for acceleration.

Autonomous cars may have faster reaction times than humans, but at highway speeds reaction times are typically 20% or less of stopping times. Therefore they can slightly mitigate the problem. However, notice how everybody talks about how autonomous cars can travel closer together. What this effectively means is that cars can travel closer to the extent that their reaction times are better. This improves unperterbed throughput slightly, but it would actually make the shock-induced traveling waves worse. All it takes is for a stray plastic bag to wander into the roadway and a car to think it's a dog and brake for it. The cars closest to it stop extremely fast but then accelerate slower than they decelerated. Cascading information delays ensure that the wave continues to travel and increases in severity until it reaches some location where buffer spaces are large enough to absorb the wave (due to lower traffic density).

The supply chain parallel problem emphasizes the importance of inventory. Running super lean on inventory can mean lower costs and higher throughput, but it exacerbates the bullwhip effect substantially.


> https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Materials-Management-Ste...

Thank you I'll check that out in addition to the Simchi book

> If you're highly technical and would like to learn how to abstract and solve some of the hardest problems in supply chain management, I would actually look into the field of Operations Research. It is basically mathematical modeling and optimization of real world operational and logistics problems.

I recently took the SIAM Math Modeling Works Challenge [1] and actually found that quite enjoyable, so Operations Research sounds great.

[1] = https://m3challenge.siam.org/

> In order for the pattern to appear, there have to be independent actors with cascading delays in the aquisition of information about the future, and a mismatch in the ability to stop production (decelerate) and start production (accelerate).

That makes sense, that's a cool connection between this bullwhip effect and the traffic wave.

> The cars closest to it stop extremely fast but then accelerate slower than they decelerated.

Aaah, so if I understand correctly, since it takes more time for them to get back up to their previous speed, each group of cars receives information to stay stopped for longer than they do to start moving again, and thus the traveling wave effect grows between each group of cars. I'm assuming however, this is the case for each group of cars acting as one unit, and there is no all seeing central coordination of all the car groups on the highway.

> The supply chain parallel problem emphasizes the importance of inventory. Running super lean on inventory can mean lower costs and higher throughput, but it exacerbates the bullwhip effect substantially.

I guess if you don't have that buffer for absorbing shock the bullwhip effect is stronger? I haven't read about what the lean production model is, so I'm probably just talking out my ass here, I'll keep this in mind when I'm reading that Womack 'Lean Thinking' book then.


For a textbook approach, both nigel slack (Operations Management) and Jacobs/Chase (SCM) are worth a look.


Thanks, I'll check those out


Start by reading this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035GTHKA


Please don't hide stuff behind links.

It's the spinoff to The Goal:

Eliyahu M. Goldratt and 2 more

Isn’t It Obvious?: A Business Novel on Retailing Using the Theory of Constraints


same here, trying to understand stockpile management for coal




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: