Building integration skills in supply chain and operations management study programs

Abstract

The modern business world requires, in addition to substance knowledge, an extensive set of more practical and generic skills from engineering graduates. Supply Chain and Operations Management (SCM/OM) experts often work as business process developers. This requires skills related to for example cross-functional coordination and the ability to comprehend the big picture and dynamics of supply chains and operation environments. Sharing experiences of generic skill descriptions and teaching methods would facilitate the translation of generic skills into different engineering education disciplines. The aim of the paper is to present a way of describing and categorizing the focal SCM/OM generic skills and to analyze how the skills can be adopted and implemented in SCM/OM study programs. The paper is based on an empirical case analysis of a SCM/OM study program. The main generic skills related to the SCM/OM discipline are described and categorized into two skill areas: the ability to design feasible improvement solutions and the ability to carry out improvement work in organizational networks. These described skill-sets are named integration skills. Teaching integration skills in SCM/OM study programs should be fully integrated with the teaching of substance knowledge, and integration skills should be developed progressively in stages throughout the studies using activating teaching methods. In teaching integration skills, the recognized and analyzed pedagogical methods are the use of increasingly challenging real-life assignments and empowering working processes for students. A combination of the methods in teaching sets gradually increasing requirements for students in learning both integration skills and substance knowledge.