Supply chain competitions are a perfect way for attracting more students to the field of supply chain management, and for teaching them real-world skills by solving challenging problems in a simulated environment.
There were 125 students from schools in Egypt and Saudi Arabia who registered for the competition. They had two days to work on a supply chain based on a case study about a Saudi food products company named, “Al Madinah Dates Company”. We asked participants to improve the company’s existing supply chain operations and help the business expand to serve more customers.
We organized seven training sessions to show our simulation software and answer questions before the competition. This way every student could choose a suitable time to attend the training. Before the competition began students had one month to practice what they learned in the training by using case studies in our library.
On a Monday morning, the competition began. Everyone was already prepared to use SCM Globe to simulate a real supply chain. We sent the participants the case study and an initial supply chain model that they could upload and run in simulations to see how it worked. Participants had to send in their new supply chain models showing their improvements, plus the monthly Profit & Loss Reports generated by simulation data from their models.
Team ranking was based on each team’s solutions to improve the financial performance of the Al Madinah Dates Company. And of course, we also gave credit for innovative ideas for improvements. After we selected the first and the second-place winners, we asked them to send us pictures and tell us what they learned, and something about themselves.
The Winner of the Competition
The WINNER is Ibrahim Mana Alaymi, asenior student at Jubail University College in Jubail Saudi Arabia. The second-place winner is a team from Egypt. For more about the second-place team, you can visit our blog post (https://www.scmglobe.com/second-place-team/).
Ibrahim recorded a one-minute video where he answers some of our questions.
Ibrahim: I am Ibrahim Alyami, a senior student at Jubail University College, majoring in logistics and supply chain management, and I am glad to be the Winner of the Saudi Supply Chain Competition 2021.
Q: What did you learn while working on this supply chain challenge?
Ibrahim: What I’ve learned in this competition is how to increase the efficiency of a supply chain and also how to use a simulation tool like SCM Globe to help you with the whole Supply Chain process.
Q: What do you find interesting about supply chains and logistics, and what kind of career would you like to have?
Ibrahim: Eventually, the interesting thing about supply chain and logistics is how you connect to many departments within an organization to have things done or solve specific issues that can affect the efficiency of a supply chain process. And of course, I would like to have my career in this area.
Q: Anything you want to add?
Ibrahim: I want to thank SCM Globe for making this opportunity for us to compete and to learn, of course. Thank you!
Showing efficient operations without compromising service level
Ibrahim did an excellent job in solving the Supply Chain problem. He was able to satisfy demand while showing the best profit and operational performance. In addition to that, his model was very realistic, and he respected all the specific instructions.
Below are the supply chain model of the Al Madinah Dates Company and the winning Profit & Loss Report that Ibrahim produced :
Conclusion
Ibrahim demonstrated that he could apply what he learned in his supply chain and operations courses to model, simulate, and optimize a real supply chain. He was able to improve operations of the Al Madinah Dates Company, and this resulted in much better financial performance as shown in his P&L Report.
We’d like to give a big thanks to everyone for participating in the contest! It has been a great pleasure speaking with you all in the training sessions and receiving your different solutions. They were all amazing!
We are glad we meet the students and find out about their skills in our competitions. The world needs skilled supply chain and industrial engineering graduates, and this kind of competition reassures us that schools are doing a great job attracting students to the field and teaching them what they need to be successful in their careers.
THANK YOU
We want to thank ثقافات لوجستية , who operates a platform on Twitter https://twitter.com/logistics_edu?lang=ar that educates and shares logistics and supply chain information and resources. The platform is a great initiative from a group of students at Jubail University College in Saudi Arabia that is for anyone interested in the field of logistics and supply chain management.
We also want to thank Samer Al Ghamdi who was our intern student and helped us during the preparation of this competition.
