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📦 How does a supply chain actually work

How does a supply chain actually work — mechanism, parts, and limits in plain language.

3
lessons
~10 min
to learn
🔬 Science
subject
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. From Source to Shelf as a SystemDefine a supply chain as a network of nodes, lead times, and inventory buffers.Goods move through timed links; inventory and lead time decide how shocks become stockouts or piles.
  2. Information, Orders, and the BullwhipExplain order amplification, push/pull design, and contractual risk allocation.Local ordering distorts upstream demand; system design and contracts decide who carries uncertainty.
  3. Modes, Bottlenecks, and ResilienceCompare freight modes and frame bottlenecks and resilience as throughput and optionality problems.Mode choice sets speed-cost risk; the bottleneck sets pace; resilience is paid-for flexibility.

Questions this course answers

What role does inventory usually play in a supply chain?

Inventory holds product in time so upstream delays and demand spikes do not instantly become customer stockouts — at the cost of cash and obsolescence risk.

Order these from customer purchase back toward amplified factory orders in a classic bullwhip story.

Small retail variation plus batching and safety ordering can amplify into large upstream swings — the bullwhip pattern.

Match each idea to its supply-chain meaning.

Throughput follows the tightest step; modes trade speed for cost; dual sourcing is a resilience purchase, not free insurance.

Grounded in trusted sources

  • MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics educational materials on supply chain systems
  • APICS / ASCM operations management body of knowledge overviews (bullwhip, inventory, lead time)
  • World Bank Logistics Performance Index methodology notes (logistics system framing)
  • Harvard Business Review classics on the bullwhip effect (Forrester/Lee tradition summaries)

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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