a supply chain survival guide

The Worst Case Scenario books are packed with information on how to land a plane, escape from quicksand, or wrestle free from an alligator, but you won't find much on how to survive offshoring or succeed in a business environment in which products become obsolete in months. For that kind of expertise, you have to go to seminars like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's "Supply Chain Strategy and Management" course.

Scheduled for Dec. 5-6 in Cambridge, Mass., the seminar will examine strategies for managing supply chains in today's rapidly changing markets. Among other topics, participants will look at forces that influence supply chain structure—how supply chain structures change, how supply chain structures and industry structures overlap, and how these structures are affected by the speed of change in their industries.

Participants will also have the opportunity to use a computer-based simulation of a multilevel supply chain to demonstrate how a system's performance can be affected by demand variability, supply lead times, and centralized information and decision making. For more information, visit http://mitsloan.mit.edu/execed.