2023-2024 / LOGI0016-1

Quality, Ethics and Sustainability in Supply Chain Management

Duration

30h Th

Number of credits

 Master in management (120 ECTS)5 crédits 
 Master in business engineering (120 ECTS)5 crédits 
 Master in business engineering (120 ECTS) (Digital Business)5 crédits 

Lecturer

Morgane Dumont, Célia Paquay, Virginie Xhauflair

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

There is a strong interrelation between the economic performance of an organization and its value to the society at large, including its immediate stakeholders (customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, etc.), but also its physical and human environment.
This course examines ways in which an organization can manage its supply chain processes so as to simultaneously take these different dimensions into account. This involves, in particular,

  • putting in place specific quality management systems which ensure that all processes deliver results in line with the objectives of the organization and with the requirements or expectations of the customers and other interested parties;
  • understanding and evaluating the ethical and environmental implications of the decisions made by the organization in terms of product design, production process, transportation, facility design and location, recycling and reprocessing, etc.
  • identifying organizational and managerial tools which allow organizations to set up a virtuous circle where quality, ethics and sustainability reinforce each other.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

Upon completion of this course, the students will understand and will be able to formulate critical opinions about quality, ethics and sustainability issues in the management of organizations.

They will be familiarized with fundamental concepts like

  •  total quality management, quality assurance, certification, statistical process control, lean management;
  • business ethics and corporate social responsibility issues in supply chain management (human rights, modern slavery, vigilance duty);
  •  life cycle of a product, environmental footprint of products and processes, energy and resource scarcity, closed-loop supply chain and sustainability reporting.
Key Learning Outcomes addressed by the course:

1. Establish a strategy in order to optimize the value chain of a company, an organization or a project:

  •  taking into account its scientific and technological context;
  • demonstrating a critical mind and scientific precision.
2. Take charge of the everyday management of a company, an organization or a project

  • analyzing his/her managerial practice with a critical and ethical mind.
3. Plan and implement the performance and quality control in a company, an organization or a project

  • using the appropriate analytical tools;
  • in order to propose realistic and coherent ways of improvement;
  • in a perspective of a continuous process.
4. Communicate efficiently, internally and externally, about a company, organization or project. 

5. Adapt his/her managerial practice to the needs of a fast-evolving world 

  • being conscious of its societal, economic, political and environmental issues;
  • developing his / her expertise in a lifelong learning perspective.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Fundamentals of supply chain management: production systems, logistics, inventories, and their relation with the strategic objectives of the firm.
Inferential statistics: confidence intervals.
Fundamentals of business ethics

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Presentations by the lecturers and (possibly) by guest speakers.

Readings (professional and academic literature).

Group projects and oral presentation

Coaching session for guidance about the projects.

The attendance to all the lectures is mandatory. The attendance to the coaching sessions is left to the choice of the group.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face

Recommended or required readings

Recommended references:

D.R. Kiran, Total Quality Management: Key Concepts and Case Studies, 2017, Butterworth-Heinemann, Elsevier.

J.S. Oakland, Oakland on Quality Management (3rd edition), 2004, Elsevier Ltd. ISBN: 978-0-7506-5741-9

Bouchery, Y., Corbett, C. J., Fransoo, J. C., & Tan, T. (Eds.). (2016). Sustainable supply chains: A research-based textbook on operations and strategy(Vol. 4). Springer.

David B, G., Trautrims, A., & Wong, C. Y. (2021). Sustainable logistics and supply chain management. Kogan page.

Exam(s) in session

Any session

- In-person

oral exam

Written work / report


Additional information:

In January:

Final grade based on two projects (written reports), a presentation, homework and participation. 

  • project #1 - report : 35%
  • project #2 - report : 50%
  • oral presentation + Q&A (during exam session): 15%
In August-September:
For those students who resit the examination in August-September, the final grade is based on the same projects, with the same contents and requirements as in January, but to be carried out individually. There is no oral presentation.

In case of a failed grade in August, no exemption regarding any part will be granted for the next academic year.

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

The attendance to all the lectures is mandatory. The attendance to the coaching sessions is left to the choice of the group.

Contacts

Instructors: Morgane Dumont Morgane.Dumont@uliege.be , Célia Paquay cpaquay@uliege.be, Virginie Xhauflair V.Xhauflair@uliege.be 

Association of one or more MOOCs