Graphic depicting the concept of a supply chain.You have a new product, smartly designed and rigorously tested. Now you need to get it to market.

You might manufacture it overseas to save money, as long as shipping costs are low enough. But what if the product takes off, and there’s a sudden surge in demand? Will you be able to manufacture and ship products fast enough to fill orders halfway across the world? Maybe you should manufacture the product closer to home. If you do, how much inventory should you carry? After all, warehousing can be expensive too . . .

So many questions! What’s a smart businessperson to do?

Why not register for CTL.SC1x — Supply Chain and Logistics Fundamentals, an MITx course on the edX platform starting on September 30? This course covers the fundamental analytic tools, approaches and techniques used in the design and operation of logistics systems and integrated supply chains. You can learn about:

  • demand forecasting, planning, and management
  • inventory planning, management, and control
  • transportation planning, management, and execution

The course is the first of three courses on supply chain and logistics being offered by MITx. The second course, planned for spring 2015, is CTL.SC2x – Supply Chain Design. It will be followed in summer 2015 by CTL.SC3x – Supply Chain Strategy.

Students who complete the three-course sequence can get a Supply Chain Management XSeries certificate confirming their achievement.

“We have designed each of the three courses to cover the breadth of supply chain management rather than focus on just one function at a time.  This is a more integrated approach,” says the instructor, Dr. Chris Caplice, Executive Director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL).

And you don’t have to wait until September 30 to start learning. With OCW, you can preview some of the topics in this first MITx course with Dr. Caplice’s course ESD.260J Logistics Systems; or check out any of the seventeen supply chain management courses in OCW.