This textbook is intended to be an introduction to supply chain management for non-business majors. I have been teaching an introductory class specifically for non-business majors and found that many of them couldn’t relate to the examples in textbooks or how to relate the concepts to their major or life. My goal of this textbook was to make the material relatable to students regardless of their major or future career plans. I wanted to show students that supply chain is part of their lives and how they can use these tools in their own lives not just in business.
This textbook is organized around the SCOR model (plan, source, make and deliver). We start at the top level with an overview of supply chain management, strategy and product design before diving into the different areas of supply chain. I have designed this textbook to start with the planning functions, then we focus on the topics within make, followed by sourcing and logistics. I find that introducing the topics in sourcing makes sense to the students after the make portion because they need to understand what we’re making and how to determine what to order and when.
Heather Scholz Lutz, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at The Pennsylvania State University. She holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University, an MBA degree from George Washington University and a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. Prior to teaching, Dr. Lutz worked in industry as a logistics analyst and commodities manager for HP and Agilent Technologies.