An Introduction to Logistics and SCM Principles and Concepts
Being part of Apple’s iTunes Store, iTunes U contains educational audio and video files shared by institutions worldwide. It enables lecturers to create own courses for iPad to be accessed by students. Richard Wilding, Professor of Supply Chain Strategy at the Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Cranfield School of Management, has provided the iTunes U course Supply Chain Management & Logistics: An Introduction to Principles and Concepts. “This course is a collection of enhanced podcasts and videos which provide an introduction to the principles and concepts of logistics and supply chain management. By utilising the material all users will be provided with a foundation of terminology and concepts enabling them to move forward and investigate the topics in more depth.” So, the next time you will see students “playing” with their Apple devices, be sympathetic to them. Maybe they are just accessing a supply chain management course.
Africa Logistics Initiative
The Kühne Foundation invited me to support its Africa Logistics Initiative. Consequently, I have spent the last weeks teaching in logistics and supply chain management at the National Institute of Transport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It has been a great experience.
What is Supply Chain Management?
This is the first installment in Arizona State University’s twelve-part introduction to supply chain management video series.
Is a Good Presentation a Good Teaching Lesson?
Students may not need to learn from PowerPoint slides, if they own a good textbook. But what happens, if a lecture doesn’t follow a textbook? When I was an undergraduate, we were fobbed off by some lecturers with buzzwords and sentence fragments on their PowerPoint slides. We had to learn the 7 advantages and the 6 disadvantages of outsourcing. Sometimes, I even strung together the initial letters of the advantages to memorize all of them for the examination. Sustainable learning? A didactic catastrophe! But how much content should ideally be on slides, if they are used in SCM teaching lessons? One of my former lecturers gave the following answer: “My slides are jam-packed with text. For sure, this is way too much text for a good presentation. But my slides are a hybrid between presentation slides and a textbook. You will like my slides when preparing for the examination.” The lecturer was right. Instead of memorizing disconnected keywords, the slides enabled us to really understand the topic.
