The Eastern Michigan University Board of Regents approved
a new major and a minor in supply chain management at its
regular meeting March 20.
Supply chain management (SCM) is a broad subject
area that focuses on the flow of materials, information
and facilitating services from the raw material sources
through all the organizations necessary to develop, produce
and deliver a finished product or a service to its ultimate
users.
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McSurely |
"It's important to the University because we are offering
something we have not offered before. It is important to
the community because, as more products and components
are being built overseas, the demand for well-trained SCM
personnel increases," said Hugh McSurely, supply chain
management program coordinator.
"The development of this major and minor are our response
to a huge need in the market in southeast Michigan and
the state," said David Mielke, dean of EMU's College of
Business. "There is an increasing demand for graduates
with this expertise. These also are programs that
fit well with the applied focus of the College of Business."
"Supply chain management has been an emerging field and
there were few universities in the world that offer the
SCM curriculum. We now have that. This is a great opportunity
for EMU to be recognized as a benchmark in a field that
is recognized globally," said Tom Sidlik, EMU regent and
head of procurement and supply chain management for Daimler/Chrysler.
McSurely said that EMU's new SCM undergraduate program
is different from some others for three reasons.
"First, in its development, we used a competency-based
approach," McSurely said. "We identified 200 things that
an undergraduate student in this field should know or be
able to do. We called these things competencies. Then,
industry professionals reviewed these competencies and
helped us decide what should go in the program. It's
more of an applied than theoretical program."
Second, McSurely said, the program has a global
orientation.
"We wanted to take advantage of the international expertise
within the College of Business (where the SCM program resides).
We have an international business program in the college
and we have a large number of international students. One
of the required courses is international business and another,
the capstone course, is a global supply chain management
course. Conducting business in a global environment
is a common theme throughout the program," said McSurely.
"The third thing that differentiates this program is that
it's an integrated program with a sufficient number of
electives, allowing students to pursue different career
paths such as international business, retailing, purchasing,
logistics, operations management and information systems.
We also find that students interested on foreign languages
can use supply chain management as a foundation to enter
businesses in other nations," McSurely said.
"With so many companies downsizing, the demand for these
types of jobs increases to manage the flow of these materials
throughout the world. We are providing skills to take advantage
of the globalization of business," McSurely said.
For additional information about this program, go to the
supply chain management Web site at www.scm.emich.edu.
For questions related to the graduate program, call the
College of Business Graduate Advising Office at 487-4444.
For undergraduate information, call the COB undergraduate
advising office at 487-2344.
