Sustainable industry and supply chain - what to teach

Abstract

How to teach students about development and sustainable operation of companies and supply chain are a complex task with several partly conflicting issues. Entrepreneurship business models are more different than sustainable business models for operation and maintenance, but they can be seen as complementary or two stages of industrial development: explore and exploit. Both are part of what can be described as Entrepreneurial Mindset. Teaching in collaboration with companies tells us something of how this may be done as experienced in course cases. Supply Chains are becoming more and more global even for SMEs. With increasing use of global Supply Chains together with increased volume and frequency, the activities and logistics in between main operations have become more important to ensure reliability and sustainable operations. And these are based on collaboration and communication between involved companies and agencies. Core issues in this are charges that determine cost involved together with custom clearance issues, delays, miscommunications, and unforeseen circumstances. The sustainable Supply Chain of tomorrow needs to be data-driven to achieve improvement. We need to go from customer data to customer benefit. It may be achieved by utilizing AI to improve decisions and reduce latency. A 3-stage roadmap for utilizing Entrepreneurial Mindset in teaching digitalization of sustainable Supply Chain is suggested.