• Skip to Content

Kelley School of Business Indiana University
  • Programs
    • Undergraduate
    • Full-Time +Flex MBA
    • Kelley Direct Online MBA
    • Online Master's Degrees & Certificates
    • +Kelley
    • 3/2 MBA
    • MS in Accounting with Data and Analytics
    • MS in Finance
    • MS in Healthcare Management
    • MS in Information Systems
    • MS in Management
    • PhD
    • Executive Education
    • Indianapolis Programs
    • International Programs
  • Faculty & Research
    • Research & Publications
    • Faculty Directory
    • Departments & Majors
    • Centers & Institutes
    • Courses
  • Recruiters & Corporate Relations
    • Graduate Career Services
    • Undergraduate Career Services
    • Indianapolis Career Services
    • Alumni Career Resources
    • Corporate & Foundation Relations
    • Indianapolis Corporate & Foundation Relations
  • Alumni
    • Who We Are
    • Get Involved
    • Career & Professional Development
    • Awards
    • Alumni Legacies
    • Events
    • Giving
    • Contact Us
  • About Us
    • Dean's Welcome
    • Administration
    • Kelley Women
    • School Profile
    • History
    • Visit Bloomington
    • Visit Kelley Indianapolis
    • Contact
    • Directory
    • Social Media Directory
    • Rankings
  • More
    • Centers & Institutes
    • Directory
    • News & Events
    • Give
    • Kelley Store
Undergraduate
  • Why Kelley?
    • Rankings
    • Global Opportunities
    • Faculty Support
    • Alumni Network
    • Living Learning Center
    • Career Services
    • Social Impact
  • Admissions
    • First-Year Students
    • Current IU Students
    • Transfer Students
    • International Students
    • Visit Us
    • Virtual Tour
  • Academics
    • Majors, Minors, & Certificates
    • Learning Goals
    • Workshops
    • Study Abroad
    • Business Honors
    • Academic Advising
  • Scholarships
    • Undergraduate Scholarship List
    • Scholarships for Direct Admit First-Year Students
    • External Scholarship List
    • Additional Financial Resources
    • Scholarships for Current Kelley Students
    • Scholarships for Prebusiness Students and Transfer Students
  • Student Life
    • Student Support
    • Student Organizations
    • Professional Fraternity Council
    • Kelley Student Government
    • Women's Council
    • REACH
    • Events Calendar
    • Newsletter
  • Pre-College
    • Kelley Sprint Case Competition
    • Women's Leadership Institute
    • MEET Kelley
    • Choose Business
    • Up-Next Business Academy
  • Current Students
    • Degree Requirements
    • Minors Outside of Kelley
    • Enrollment
    • Academic Support
    • Forms & Applications
    • New Student Orientation
    • Contact Us
  • Parents
    • Supporting Your Student
    • Academic Resources
    • Career Resources
    • Questions?
  1. Home
  2. Programs
  3. Undergraduate
  4. Academics
  5. Majors, Minors, & Certificates
  6. Supply Chain Management Major
  • Majors, Minors, & Certificates
  • Learning Goals
  • Workshops
  • Study Abroad
  • Business Honors
  • Academic Advising

Supply chain management major

One of the newest majors at Kelley, supply chain management focuses on the functions of planning, organizing, and managing the flow of purchased materials into and out of organizations. 

Supply chain management majors can work in a variety of industries including manufacturing, process industries, the service sector, education, and government. Options include working as buyers, contract negotiators, supplier relations, inventory managers, transportation managers, import/export goods managers, and purchasing or logistics planners/analysts.

Is supply chain management the right major for you?

Are you interested in the tangible nature of getting products to customers? Do you have strong communication skills and an awareness of the world? Do you consider yourself a spreadsheet guru? If so, supply chain management may be for you. Learn more about the courses in the supply chain management degree track.

Description of the video:

I'm Kyle Cattani, professor of supply chain management at the Kelley School of Business. In this and two other short videos, I hope to pique your interest in the operations or supply chain management majors at Kelley. In this video, I will define supply chain management, discuss the personality and skillsets of our supply chain students, and present details about our operations major and our supply chain management major.

A supply chain is comprised of all the companies that work together to get the product to the customer. I like the description by an executive in the toilet paper industry who described his company's supply chain as from stump to rump. I apologize for that image, but I think it conveys the notion of the length and involvement of supply chains that begin with things taken right from the Earth and end with the customer.

Supply chain management is about how we manage and control the flow of material, information, and money through this network of players who are getting the product to the customer. Every company has to figure out how to provide products to customers. And so there are a lot of career possibilities from the private to the public sector, from manufacturers to non-governmental organizations, a.k.a., NGOs, from analyst positions to shop floor control.

What kind of people choose supply chain management? Here are some of the attributes. People who like the tangible nature of getting products to customers, have common sense, can communicate, have an awareness of the world, our analytic, and are spreadsheet gurus.

We have two related majors at the Kelley School of Business, supply chain management, and operations management, which is a subset of the supply chain management major.

The supply chain major requires 21 credits. That's seven, 3 credit courses, with five of the seven required and two elective.

The operations management major requires 15 credits. That's five, 3 credit courses with three required and two electives.

Let me show you the details. The supply chain major requires 21 credits, as I said, seven courses of three credits, each with five required and at least two electives. The first required course, P 319, looks at how all the players in a supply chain plan, implement, and control the flow of information, materials, and services through all the players in the supply chain.

The next three required courses focus on the supply chain from the perspective of a manufacturer, looking upstream to suppliers and downstream to customers via logistics and distribution. P 429 looks at the processes in an operation, such as a manufacturer or service provider, while P 320 looks upstream at sourcing from suppliers, and P 431 looks downstream at logistics and distribution functions. The final required course, P 481 is at the intersection of supply chain management and data analytics and showcases a quantitative approach to modeling managerial trade-offs in the supply chain and selecting among data-driven alternatives.

Then there are a number of elective courses to choose from, allowing you to focus on particular supply chain management topics of interest to you.

The operations management major is a subset of the supply chain management major with three of the five required courses from the supply chain management major and then two electives from the same list.

Supply chain management has been around for millennia, but has dramatically increased in importance over the last few decades. With exciting new trends and opportunities, supply chain management looks to continue to grow. It is future-proof. One of the earliest supply chain examples is of the Nile River that transported materials from south to north using river current, and transported material from north to south using the wind. It is interesting that this is an early example of a sustainable supply chain, a topic of great interest to us in the 21st century.

There are many exciting supply chain management topics on the docket. Artificial intelligence or AI shows tremendous promise in allowing supply chains to capitalize on the reams of data being collected. Robotics and self-driving vehicles can increase productivity and quality at ever decreasing costs. This is especially critical given shortages of truck drivers. The Internet of Things with all kinds of devices and machines and vehicles connected online, and with supply chains provide opportunities not available to the Egyptians or even supply chains from a couple of decades ago. Possible disruption to supply chains, as we saw with COVID-19, presents us opportunities to figure out how to make our supply chains more resilient and robust, in addition to trying to make them more. Sustainable goals often aligned with business goals to create efficiencies and reduce waste, such as packaging. The supply chain management and operations management majors are exciting, and I hope you agree with me. They are future-proof.

Please reach out to me, my department, and or your academic advisor with questions about the majors. I hope to see you in our supply chain and operations courses and majors. Thank you.

How to Apply

Major Requirements

What is supply chain management?

Explore the history of supply chains from ancient times when the Egyptians starting using the Nile River as a way to distribute goods to our modern post-COVID era. From the beginning, it's been a quest to answer the eternal question—where is my stuff?

Description of the video:

Hello. I'm Kyle Cattani, a professor of supply chain management at the Kelley School of Business. In this video, I provide an historical context to the question of, what is supply chain management or where is my stuff? Every company provides goods and or services to customers. Finance makes sure the company has the money it needs. Marketing strives to convince customers to buy the product, but operations is the function that makes sure the product is available to the customer. It is perhaps the most practical of the business functions as it deals with the reality that a business cannot exist if it cannot provide a product. Operations management, thus, is about how firms organize resources to provide these goods and/or services.

Supply chains are the network of players who work together to get the product to the customer, and supply chain management is about the management of the flows of materials, information, and money through the chain. Supply chains have been around for a long, long time. For thousands of years, the Egyptians have used the Nile River as a major transportation mechanism. The Nile runs from south to north up towards the Mediterranean Sea. Conveniently, the wind goes the opposite direction from north to south. If you want to ship a product northward, you put it on a boat and let it drift downstream. If you want to go upstream, you put up a sail, and the wind carries you upstream. Now, this is a green supply chain.

Many supply chain innovations and practices come from the military. The Romans, with their military and their armies were very good at supply chain management. They had roads all over their empire that could be used to get armies and supplies where needed. Note that even with their roads, it would take a few days for a victory at the end of the empire to be known in Rome.

The Pacific Ocean is huge. Surprisingly, humans have traveled and traded across the Pacific for thousands of years. I'm not sure I want to travel on the boats they used, but apparently the payoffs were worth it. Between Africa and the Indian subcontinent, the winds have an annual cycle. An intrepid business person could take a business trip to deliver goods in one direction, and then return goods to the other direction, a one-year business trip. Along the Pacific coast of South America, extensive trade routes were developed that traded goods between the shores and the mountains and along the entire length of the Andes.

The Silk Road has been around for thousands of years with trade between Europe and Asia. It was effective, but fairly inefficient. Traders would take their product to the next city in the supply chain or across the Silk Road, and they found the roads to be very dangerous and not very well traveled. They were there, but it was pretty inefficient. The traders would get their goods to the next city, hand it off to another trader who would probably mark it up significantly, who would then try to figure out how to get it to the next city, also facing the same dangerous road.

Early 1200s, the founder of the Mongol Empire, Jengas Khan came into the scene, and Genghis Khan led his people to create the largest empire that perhaps ever existed. The Mongols were very good at two things, riding horses and shooting bows and arrows. And importantly, they were good at shooting bows and arrows while riding on the horses, and they used these capabilities to capture city after city. The plunder provided them a good source of wealth. They had eventually the largest contiguous empire in history. But I would argue that perhaps their greatest source of wealth was not from the plunder, which was a one-time deal, but rather in the fact that they now had a great supply chain and that they were able to manage the supply chain in a very effective way. Now, instead of having all of these connected line segments that went from one town to the other, they could create kind of a super highway where they would send a team of camels and go all the way across, and it was much more safe and secure.

Modern supply chains have capabilities that are not available to the ancients. For example, computing power has exploded. Over the last few decades, we have computer power that is mind boggling and has gone up dramatically. As a result, information flows instantaneously across the globe, and with these computers, we are able to process this information, interpret it, and make decisions based on it.

Meanwhile, supply chains are moving a lot of stuff in very big quantities. The scale of a supertanker is actually unbelievable. Supply chains are now what we call multimodal. You can send your product via plane, via truck, via train, via boat, or some combination of these to get the product across the globe. The supply chains are indeed global, and the supply networks go everywhere you might imagine. A big change from what we saw with the ancient supply chains, and very much an opportunity for us to look at supply chains in a new way. Meanwhile, supply chains still have a lot of challenges, and we saw some of that with the adventures we had with COVID, where supply chains were stressed in ways that we had not seen before. For example, prior to COVID, nearly a third of all the food in the United States was consumed in restaurants. And in March of 2020 when the world shut down, including these restaurants, all the food needed to be purchased through grocery stores rather than through the restaurants, and the grocery stores quickly ran out of food. It wasn't that we ate more during COVID, well, actually, some of us did, but not significantly enough that would affect the supply chain, but all the food that was going to the restaurants needed to be diverted and actually repackaged and sent to stores. This was not trivial. For example, consider ketchup. Restaurants get ketchup perhaps in gallon or five gallon containers that aren't exactly what consumers are looking for in stores, and so the supply chains had to be redirected, the ketchup put in the smaller bottles that we use and then sent to the stores. It took a while for these supply chains to adjust and for the stores to get replenished.

In 2020, as the world shut down, demand evaporated for many goods. Some goods saw an explosion of demand, for example, cleaning supplies and masks, but for most goods, like cars or travel or eating out or shopping, demand evaporated. Consumers were staying home. In 2021, especially as vaccines became more available, the demand returned, and it returned with a vengeance. Consumers, at least those who had kept their jobs, had saved a lot of money. They didn't spend anything during COVID, and then the government gave them some more. So they did the American thing. They went shopping. And supply chains saw, as you see in this graph, a large spike in demand, and they had a very difficult time keeping up.

So why did the supply chains, why were they so stressed during COVID? Partly, it's for historical reasons over the last few decades, supply chains have focused on becoming very lean. They've tried to avoid excess capacity. They've tried to avoid excess inventory, and supply chains have also become very extended, and so outsourcing and offshoring to all over the globe made them more vulnerable to something that happened with COVID. Also, when COVID hit, it affected a lot of the manufacturing. You had illness and absent workers, and then you have the mix issues, such as I described with ketchup in the food industry. The logistics, the moving of products through the supply chains also was affected by illness and absent workers, and then there became bottlenecks and key transportation nodes such as the ports where the ships were going.

As COVID abated, my wife ordered a custom piece of furniture in our local store, and they promised her delivery in three months. She was very excited to get this piece of furniture. After three months, it's still not arrived, so she called them, and they said, Oh, well, it'll take another three months. Finally, after eight months exasperated, she asked them, "Where's my stuff?" And the response was, well, you know, it's the supply chain. My wife said it was like they were saying, you know, it's the weather. We can't do anything about it. Well, my message to you is that we actually can do something about it. Supply chains are not like the weather, and supply chain experts can help. So my encouragement to you is to major in supply chain management, and then you can be the ones who can help.

Please reach out to me, my department, and/or your academic advisor, if you have any questions about the majors. Thank you.

Career path to CEO

Kyle D. Cattani, professor of operations management, discusses the career opportunities available to supply chain management majors, including the path to CEO.

Description of the video:

Only a select few will make it all the way up the corporate ladder to become CEO. It is interesting to learn about these men and women and the paths they took to arrive at this rarefied air. Consider Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. As may be typical of CEOs, Cook took a somewhat circuitous path to the top. He earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University, an MBA from Duke University. He worked for IBM, Intelligent Electronics, and Compaq before joining Apple in 1998 as a senior vice president for worldwide operations. He later became chief operating officer before becoming CEO in 2011.

Is Tim Cook unique as a CEO that came up through operations? It turns out that operations is the most common path. More than the other business functions of finance at 21, marketing at 13, accounting at 11, management or consulting each at three, operations has the highest number of CEOs in the Fortune 100 at 25.

Why does operations or the closely related supply chain management function make sense as a career path? Operations management focuses on planning, organizing, and managing the assets and resources of the organization that are used to provide the product the organization delivers. Every company provides a product, finance makes sure the company has the money it needs. Marketing strives to convince customers to buy the product, but operations is the function that makes sure the product is available to the customer. It is perhaps the most practical of the business functions as it deals with the reality that a business cannot exist if it can't provide a product.

When you go to a store and see the myriad products available to purchase, you may not think about the amount of effort it took to ensure that the right amount of the right products are ready for your selection. It is the operations function that operates behind the scenes to make it happen, and the skills that make one successful in this discipline are valued by companies from top to bottom.

I'm Kyle Cattani a professor of supply chain management at the Kelley School of Business. In this and two other short videos, I hope to pique your interest in the operations or supply chain management majors at Kelley. In the next couple of slides, I'll discuss some of the job opportunities available to students in our two majors. I encourage you also to watch a video on the history of supply chain management and another video about the specifics of the majors. I hope you'll agree that majoring in either operations or in supply chain management is future-proof, even if you don't make it all the way to CEO.

Here's a list of the top employers for graduates of the supply chain or operations management majors at the Kelley School of Business. You can see that many of the top employers are consulting firms, such as Ernst&Young, Grant Thornton, KPMG, PwC, BCG, or McKinsey, but also include other companies known for their expertise in supply chain management, such as Grainger, whose mission statement is "We keep the world working," which they do by offering very quick delivery of approximately two million different maintenance, repair, and operating products and services to other companies. You may be aware of Target Corporation, who uses their expertise in supply chain management to achieve their motto of "Expect More, Pay Less" brand promise.

Note that every company delivers products either goods or services or a combination of goods and services, and every company has and needs employees to run their operations. While all companies hire operation students, this list shows the 20 companies that hired the most from the Kelley School of Business. Some of the job opportunities available to our graduates of operations or supply chain management include positions in logistics, which is the task of getting products to their final destinations available to customers. Purchasing and sourcing, which looks upstream in the supply chain, and refers to the process of selecting and managing the vendors who provide materials or services to an organization. Supply chain managers, which is a more general name for many roles involved in the management of the flow of goods and services in the firm.  Consultants who can specialize in advising clients about how to improve their supply chains. Analysts who analyze data and methods to predict and improve a company's delivery of products and services to its customers. Project managers, who coordinate and oversee the entire process of a project from start to finish, and Lean and Six Sigma, which is a set of methodologies and tools to improve business processes by reducing defects and errors, minimizing variation, and increasing quality and efficiency.

In general, these and other operations or supply chain jobs are about helping firms use their resources effectively to get products to customers. I hope that you consider the operations or supply chain majors at Kelley. You may or may not make it CEO, I certainly hope that you do. And I hope that you remember the Kelley School when it happens. But even if you don't, more importantly, I hope that you set yourself up for a rewarding and fruitful career.

Please reach out to me, my department, and or your academic advisor with questions about the majors. Thank you.

  • Salary statistics

    Explore the career outcomes, including starting salaries, for supply chain and operations management graduates of the Kelley School of Business.

  • Social media

    • Facebook for the Kelley School of Business Full-Time MBA Program
    • Twitter for the Kelley School of Business
    • Linkedin for the Kelley School of Business Full-Time MBA Program
    • Blog for the Kelley School of Business Full-Time MBA Program
    • Instagram for the Kelley School of Business Full-Time MBA Program
    • Youtube for the Kelley School of Business Full-Time MBA Program
    • Accessibility
    • College Scorecard
    • Privacy Notice
    • Copyright © 2025 The Trustees of Indiana University