X-SCM: The New Science of Extreme Supply Chain Management

Announcing the publication of X-SCM: The New Science of Extreme Supply Chain Management. This book, sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals and produced by a team of authors from the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business takes the discipline of supply chain management to a new level. It unveils a new science for managing supply chain risk and extreme volatility.

The book, funded by Sterling Commerce, brings together an unprecedented array of contributions from world experts in supply chain volatility management. Their collective writings cover the supply chain in all its forms—physical, financial, cyber, and service—and do so in a way that dials up the science of supply chain management to the next level…to a level capable of taking on the kind of extreme oscillation, change, and even crises that characterize our world today.

X-SCM: The New Science of Extreme Supply Chain Management is accompanied by an online toolset designed to further assist supply chain management professionals in analyzing and managing the myriad aspects of supply chain volatility and risk. This toolset includes groundbreaking new learning tools based on computer gaming, i.e., new online supply chain simulations that enable players to explore, react to, and manage supply chain volatility scenarios.

The X-treme Supply Chain Simulation

As part of the companion tools that accompany the book, X-SCM: The New Science of Extreme Supply Chain Management, the University of Maryland and the makers of Marketplace simulations developed a supply chain risk simulation based on computer gaming models called X-treme Supply Chain Simulation.

The focus of this simulation is on managing supply chain risk in an emerging technology market. Players tackle the practical aspects of demand creation and fulfillment while dealing with the challenges of finding, negotiating and contracting with, managing, and motivating supply chain partners. All of these tasks must be conducted within a business environment that is ever changing and filled with risks that could destabilize critical aspects of the technology supply chain.

Throughout the four-quarter game, participants gain increasingly intense exposure to the methods and tools of supply chain risk management.

October 5, 2010 - Book Launch at the Reagan Center in Washington D.C.