A Brain & Bot course · Self-paced · Free

Operations & Supply Chain Management

A decision-based introduction to how things actually get made and delivered. Every chapter is grounded in a real business question — so a year from now you'll remember “that's how I find the bottleneck” rather than “that's process analysis.”

Course at a glance

Seven decision questions, organized into three Parts that map to how operations leaders actually run a business: how we make things → where stuff comes from → how we optimize. Click any card to jump in.

Part 1 · How We Make Things

Process choice, layout, project management, and finding the bottleneck.

DECISION 1
"What kind of operation are we running?"
Process Types, Facility Layout, Project Management
Weeks 2–3
DECISION 2
"Where's the bottleneck?"
Process Analysis, Capacity, Little's Law
Week 4

Part 2 · Where Stuff Comes From & How We Plan

Sourcing, lean logistics, forecasting, S&OP, inventory, and MRP.

DECISION 3
"Where should we build, and who supplies us?"
Sourcing, Lean, Logistics, Capacity Strategy
Weeks 5–6
DECISION 4
"What should we make, and how much?"
Forecasting, Sales & Operations Planning
Weeks 8–9
DECISION 5
"How much should we hold, and when do we reorder?"
EOQ, ABC, Safety Stock, MRP & BOM
Weeks 10–11

Part 3 · How We Optimize

Quality, statistical control, scheduling, theory of constraints, and ERP.

DECISION 6
"How do we keep quality high?"
TQM, DMAIC, Seven Tools, SPC, Cp/Cpk
Weeks 13–14
DECISION 7
"Whose work goes first, and how does it all connect?"
Scheduling Rules, Theory of Constraints, ERP & IoT
Weeks 12, 14
CAPSTONE
"Prove you can run this"
Six end-to-end company cases
Throughout

🚀 What you walk away with

The fluency to diagnose a real operation — spot the bottleneck, defend a sourcing trade-off, forecast next quarter, size inventory, run a Six Sigma improvement, sequence the work, and explain any of it to a CFO in plain English. Six fictional-but-realistic capstone companies you can point a hiring manager at.

About this course

Self-paced. Free. Pick whichever sections matter to you.

Who this course is for

Anyone who wants to actually run things — new managers, founders, MBAs, operations analysts, supply-chain hires, engineers moving toward business, or curious learners. No prior operations background is assumed; basic Excel and a willingness to think in trade-offs gets you started.

What the course covers

A complete tour of operations and supply chain management. You'll work through process design and project management, find bottlenecks with Little's Law, evaluate suppliers and design lean networks, forecast demand and plan S&OP, size inventory with EOQ and run MRP, raise quality with DMAIC and statistical process control, sequence jobs with priority rules, and connect it all with ERP and IoT. Each topic ends with a hands-on activity using real company-style data.

Why "decision-based" learning?

This course organizes content around decisions a manager makes, not chapters in a textbook.

Why? Because a year from now, you'll remember “that's how I find the bottleneck” — not “that's Little's Law in Chapter 11.”

Each topic starts with a real decision question. We introduce the framework that answers it, walk through a hands-on case using realistic data, and reinforce with an integrative case at the end of the course.

What you'll learn

By the end you'll be able to:

  1. Diagnose an operation — identify process type, capacity, bottleneck, and the metric that matters most.
  2. Plan demand, capacity, and inventory using forecasting, S&OP, EOQ, and MRP.
  3. Improve quality and flow with DMAIC, the Seven Tools, statistical process control, and the Theory of Constraints.
  4. Decide sourcing, location, and scheduling trade-offs by weighing cost, quality, risk, and lead time.
  5. Communicate operational recommendations to executives in language they can act on.
Materials & tools (all free)

You can do this whole course with a spreadsheet. A few optional tools deepen the experience.

Going further with AI

AI is woven into every topic in this course — not as a side trip, but as the tool a working operations analyst actually uses. If you want to go deeper, this companion library walks through how AI is used across the discipline:

How to use this course

Two ways to work through it:

  1. Follow the schedule. The 15-week plan is a suggested rhythm — go faster or slower as you like. Weeks are grouped into the three Parts.
  2. Browse by topic. If you have a specific question ("how do I size inventory?"), jump straight to that decision page. Each one is self-contained.

The integrative cases at the end are where you stitch decisions together against realistic company data. Midnight Bakery and BrewLine are the canonical end-to-end builds — pick one and work it.

Using AI tools responsibly

AI is a real operations tool now — demand sensing, supplier risk, root-cause analysis, scheduling. Use it. A few principles:

  • Learn WITH AI, not FROM AI. Treat it as an analyst sitting next to you, not a replacement for your judgment.
  • Own the decision. You should be able to defend every number, framework, and recommendation you ship.
  • Verify before you trust. AI confidently produces wrong answers — especially on calculations. Always sanity-check.

If you're working on a real project at work or school, follow your organization's AI policy on top of these principles.