It's only July, but it's not too early to be thinking about heading back to school in the fall. Several universities that offer executive education programs have already announced their upcoming supply chain courses, some of which start as early as next month. Here's a look at some of those courses:

• The Center for Supply Chain Research and the Executive Education Program at Penn State's Smeal College of Business will present a week-long course, "Managing Effective Supply Chains: Essentials of Supply Chain Management," next month. Scheduled for Aug. 15-19, the program, which is co-sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, aims to give participants the foundation for managing the various components of regional or global supply chains.
  
  The course, one of three in the school's Certificate in Supply Chain Management program, includes a supply chain simulation exercise called LINKS, in which participants try different ways of improving a fictional company's overall financial, operating and market performance. For information, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/psep.
• Later in the month, The Logistics Institute (TLI) at Georgia Tech will offer a pair of logistics-related courses. The first, "Logistics Performance, Cost and Value Measures," takes place on Aug. 23-24 and will look at how logistics performance improvements translate into operating and capital cost reductions and increased shareholder value. In the course, faculty will define the link between logistics performance and shareholder value; introduce a set of logistics performance benchmarks; and demonstrate how to use logistics performance gap analysis to justify new logistics initiatives.
  
  On the following two days, TLI will offer a course on third-party logistics. The course will provide an overview of the 3PL marketplace, suggestions for evaluating whether outsourcing makes good business sense, case studies in third-party logistics, and techniques for managing third-party relationships. For information, visit the TLI Web site, www.tli.gatech.edu.
• The University of Tennessee has also scheduled several executive-level courses for the next several months. It kicks off its academic year the week of Sept. 12-16 with two courses offered through the school's Center for Executive Education. The first course, "Logistics and Operations in the Supply Chain," will be held Sept. 12-14, followed by "The Lean Enterprise and the Supply Chain," on Sept. 14-16. Those two courses represent parts three and four of the center's Integrated Supply Chain Certification Program.
  
  The fifth and six courses in the program, "Supply Chain Resource Management" and "Integrative Supply Chain Experience," will be held on the Knoxville campus from Nov. 14-16 and Nov. 16-18, respectively, while courses one and two, "Supply Chain Management Strategy" and "Demand Management in the Supply Chain," will be offered beginning Jan. 16, 2006. For information, visit http://SupplyChain.utk.edu/TC513.