Welcome to Supply Chain Management, a field that studies the processes and relationships to procure materials, transform them into useful products and services and deliver them to customers. It encompasses activities including purchasing, production, operations, logistic, transportation and integration. Driven by increasing business competition, evolving new technologies such as the internet of things, drone deliveries and autonomous vehicles, the growing availability of data and the power of business analytics, Supply Chain Management is a vibrant and dynamic field with a plethora of career opportunities. It’s essential to our economy and everyday life, and vital for responding to the challenges posed by natural disasters and pandemics.
Business Analytics provides the tools for data-driven decisions that drive the economy and improve our world. Data itself does not speak, but needs various analytical methods and tools to describe what happened (descriptive), predict what will happen (predictive), and prescribe what to do or how to react to achieve objectives (prescriptive). Supply chain is a prominent arena for analytics applications of all kinds.
The UMSL Supply Chain & Analytics Department offers the most comprehensive and affordable supply chain programs in the greater St. Louis region and the state of Missouri. Our programs feature the two-pillar of focus in both Business Analytics and the Supply Chain domain. With our nationally ranked Graduate Programs, we are designated as the first Regional IPSERA Center of Competence in North America.
Our comprehensive program offerings at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels prepare and enable students to apply descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics for effective supply chain management in practice:
Our faculty are supply chain and analytics thought leaders who are most connected to the region’s businesses. We conduct cutting-edge research that makes a real life impact across verticals including manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, military, humanitarian logistics, etc., and brings our expertise into student-centered teaching. The Department houses two research centers: the Supply Chain Risk and Resilience Research Institute (SCR3) and the Laboratory for Advanced Supply Chain Analytics (LASCA), which actively engage in applied research and professional events.
Our departmental Advisory Board, made up of senior executives from area companies, provides strong support and guidance for the department’s initiative of becoming the Supply Chain Analytics Center of Excellence in the University of Missouri System and beyond. They help keep our curriculum up-to-date, support various student engagement programs to enrich our student experience and guide our research to ensure we are exploring ways of making real improvements in how supply chain and analytics is used in industry. Our focus on companies headquartered in St. Louis or whom have large operations in the area means we can connect research, teaching and student engagement to what is needed to advance the world - innovation, application and great professionals who move supply chain and analytics forward.
For more information about the UMSL Supply Chain & Analytics Department and its programs, please feel free to contact me:
Haitao Li, PhD
Professor and Chair
Supply Chain & Analytics Department
College of Business Administration
lihait@umsl.edu
(314) 516-5890
UMSL is the only public university in the region to carry dual AACSB accreditation for its business and accounting programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
