
Ask HN: How to self study management, especially supply chain management? - caaaadr
I recently saw [an HN thread about the bullwhip effect] (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22663332" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22663332</a>) where [one user discussed](<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22664178" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=22664178</a>) their experience in management school with that simulation.<p>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&#x27;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!
======
mvellandi
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.

~~~
heymijo
> _(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...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17255186-the-phoenix-project)

------
hutzlibu
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.

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

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

------
pjot
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_research)
[1]
[https://developers.google.com/optimization/introduction/over...](https://developers.google.com/optimization/introduction/overview)
[2] [https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/](https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/)

~~~
fizixer
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.

~~~
hef19898
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!

~~~
MrK93
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.

------
diffstrokes
MIT has a fantastic online SCM micro-masters program:
[https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/](https://micromasters.mit.edu/scm/)

~~~
barry-cotter
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/](https://personalmba.com/)

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

------
hef19898
The first go-to book would be this one, if you ask me:

[https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Managing-Supply-Chain-
Stude...](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Managing-Supply-Chain-
Student/dp/0073341525)

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.

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

~~~
hef19898
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.

------
pgt
Whatever you do, Do Not start playing Factorio.

~~~
beckingz
Suggest disagreeing and committing.

Though committing is not optional once you start.

They call it Cracktorio for a reason.

------
austincheney
[https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN1845...](https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN18450_ADP%204-0%20FINAL%20WEB.pdf)

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.

~~~
caaaadr
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?

------
productivity900
Read 'The Goal' by Eli Goldratt - one of the best supply chain books ever
written.

~~~
lonelappde
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.

------
zebrafish
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...](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/supply-chain-management)

~~~
caaaadr
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.

------
hluska
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](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.

~~~
caaaadr
> 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.

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

~~~
caaaadr
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.

------
SCM-Enthusiast
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.

~~~
caaaadr
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.

------
chadmeister
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/](https://store.hbr.org/case-studies/)

~~~
caaaadr
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-...](https://store.hbr.org/product/do-you-really-think-we-are-so-stupid-a-
letter-to-the-ceo-of-deutsche-telekom-a/ES1001)

------
momentmaker
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...](https://docs.baseline-
protocol.org/radish34/radish34-explained)

------
mathnmusic
You can find some curated resources on supply chain here:
[https://learnawesome.org/topics/e0ca877f-7dd4-467a-83b2-efa1...](https://learnawesome.org/topics/e0ca877f-7dd4-467a-83b2-efa177bce1ea-
supply-chain)

------
ericalexander0
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.

------
darksaints
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/Introduction-Materials-Management-Steve-
Chapman/dp/0134156323)

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1260084841/ref=dp_ob_neva_mob...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1260084841/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile)

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.

~~~
caaaadr
> [https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Materials-Management-
> Ste...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Materials-Management-Steve-
> Chapman/dp/0134156323)

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/](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.

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

~~~
caaaadr
Thanks, I'll check those out

------
kesor
Start by reading this
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035GTHKA](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0035GTHKA)

~~~
lonelappde
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_

------
BOOSTERHIDROGEN
same here, trying to understand stockpile management for coal

