Knowledge Management System in Career Counseling

Semester: Fall 2010 Instructor: Lakshmi Iyer Jun Situ December 7, 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. 2. 3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................ 2 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 2 METHOD .................................................................................................................................. 6 3.1. CRITICAL SKILL SETS EXPLORATION .............................................................................. 11 MATERIALS AND PROCUREMENT ROLES .................................................................. 11 LOGISTICS ROLES .................................................................................................... 13 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT ROLES ..................................................................... 14 TRANSPORTATION ROLES ........................................................................................ 17 INVENTORY MANAGEMENT ROLES .......................................................................... 18 OPERATIONS ROLES ................................................................................................. 19 SALES AND CUSTOMER SERVICE ROLES .................................................................. 20 CONSULTING ROLES ................................................................................................ 22

3.1.1. 3.1.2. 3.1.3. 3.1.4. 3.1.5. 3.1.6. 3.1.7. 3.1.8. 3.2. 3.3. 4. 5.

COURSE EXPLORATION ................................................................................................... 24 ALGORITHM .................................................................................................................... 25

SYSTEM DESIGN .................................................................................................................... 27 CONCLUSIONS ....................................................................................................................... 32

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 34

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1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this project was to create a knowledge management system using knowledge engineering techniques. This knowledge management system was developed using Corvid software as the driver or platform for development. The area of expertise chosen for this project was career counseling in supply chain management. The core counseling services used in the development of this system were limited to provide the most desirable position information in supply chain management, the job description, qualification, critical skill sets, salary related to such position. Also, the system could generate the most beneficial courses information in order to help users improve their academic knowledge in campus. Recommendation generated is based on the predefine algorithm which matches the critical skill sets extracted and summarized from specific roles description with the self-evaluation of users competencies. The overall purpose of the system was to provide a graduate student with preliminary information of what specific position in supply chain management is best suit for his/her competencies in the field.

2. INTRODUCTION
Knowing more about oneself is always a good way for one who is seeking to explore his or her career in a specific field. In fact, it has never been too early for those first-year college students take their first step to prepare themselves for future career. Specifically, find out the courses which are most beneficial for their interests and their career, take a step further to get detailed information about the courses as well as the job market, for the sake of gaining a little bit more competitive advantages and making themselves slightly more marketable. Besides, one of the challenges for those who are graduating from college would be how they could get an
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ideal job which both meets to their interests and pays well. Hence, landing the most appropriate first position in one specific area is a tremendous start that brings to a great success in ones career. Generally, the way college students often adopt in order to explore their careers is either by meeting with a career counselor who is always assigned to one specific department or school, or just simply by surfing on the Internet and searching information from one website to another, such as Monster.com. The fact is, like most of the job searching websites do, they provide services in order to help users find out the most suitable future career by simply inquiring users to fill out the information in a drop-down box, information includes what the most interesting field users want to get into, what specific areas they concentrate on and so on. Then they provide a list of possible roles or positions and ask users for final decisions. Such processes for defining career are good, but only for those who know about themselves pretty well. What if the users are not that familiar with specific positions? What if they do not know the specific position requirements, qualification, or even responsibilities, let alone the market trends for that position as well as the average salary paid by companies? But one thing they do know, is the specific competencies they possess, say some sorts of practical experiences in information systems, or some kinds of academic knowledge gained from the college. Furthermore, most of the colleges do not have sufficient number of career counselors to fully answer every students questions. Even if there are enough counselors in place, they might not be able to solve any problems related to one specific field since it is impossible for a career counselor to be familiar with all the academic areas and market trends in a specific field. Also, online information is always scattered, insufficient, uncorrelated from one website to another. Therefore, it is always challenging for students to gather reliable information which relates to
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what they really want to achieve. Thus, how to further bridge a gap between personal competencies and job requirements for certain position in the marketplace is always an issue. And further combining the theory into practice is also not easy as well. Knowledge Management System (KM System) is a (generally IT based) system for managing knowledge in organizations for supporting creation, capture, storage and dissemination of information (Wikipedia: KMS, 2010). It could also be referred as a diagnostic system. The idea here is, by capturing all the information needed, a diagnostic system could generate a series of results or recommendations based on a predefined algorithm. And those predefined rules or algorithm is always externalized and summarized from specific specialists according to their practical experiences in such areas by IT technicians. For example, a patient would choose go to see a doctor if he wonders whether he gets obesity. The patient first has to provide a lot of information about himself, such as his height, weight, diet or any inherited diseases history and so on. After capturing all those related information, the doctor could diagnose whether he gets problems. In fact, in the information era, all those processes mentioned previously could be extracted and programmed in a diagnostic system. Patients right now do not necessarily have to conduct a face-to-face communication with doctors when they want to talk to them. Instead, they could choose simply sit in front of a computer and communicate with a computer. Then, a diagnostic system, which acts as a specialist, could help users summarize the information they input and generates suggestions according to certain rules in a much more efficient manner. The Knowledge Management System which presented in this paper is basically based on a career counseling scenario in supply chain management area. In order to help career counselor save numbers of hours to deal with different students regarding to specific field, the main purposes of this KM System (which is referred as Career Explorer in the later section) is, by
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taking supply chain management as a starting point, to facilitate the processes of gathering job information, generate connections between different information, bridge the gap between academic knowledge and job requirements in supply chain management area, and provide users with detailed suggestions and recommendation, which includes the best starting point regarding to what kind of position in the field, the most appropriate career path according to students capabilities, how well those positions are paid in the current market and so forth, based on information the users provide to the system. The whole system design processes would be totally executed by Exsys Corvid, a development tool that makes it practical for a company to build and deploy systems that capture knowledge to provide situation-specific answers. Systems built with Exsys Corvid interact with users in a way that emulates a conversation with a human expert. The systems ask questions dynamically, and use the experts logic to produce reasoned advice tailored to the individual (exsys.com, 2010). There are two objectives for this paper. The first objective is to discuss the processes of developing the Career Explorer in supply chain management area, including the process of knowledge discovery, knowledge capturing as well as the mechanism used for setting up the rules for decision making. The second objective is to explore the potential value of the Career Explorer if it expands to any other academic fields, as well as the limitation related to it. Of particular interest in the paper is the method used for categorizing the supply chain job positions by their responsibilities, qualifications, required knowledge. Each critical qualification or skill of a position would be assigned a confidence score based on its importance. Then each position could be indicated as a sum of confidence scores of all the related skills. Finally, a report of recommendation generated according to the confidence scores the users get. The system would also provide users with courses information of supply chain management in campus (In this case,
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we use the class catalog information of Supply Chain Management Department in University of North Carolina at Greensboro as an example.), information that could help students find out the most suitable courses for the sake of building up the fundamental knowledge for certain career path. The paper begins by providing couples of steps needed for the focus on knowledge discovery and knowledge capturing processes. Based upon this discussion a recommendation decision making framework is developed from recent field work. This field work provided the opportunity to develop a diagnostic model of career exploring, and further relates to the courses information provided in campus using Exsys Corvid. Lastly, the paper would also lay out any benefits, limitations, trade-offs brought by implementation of the system, as well as the future work for further development, such as the feasibility of the system if it is expanded to any other areas/fields.

3. METHODOLOGY
There are different ways of developing a functional Knowledge Management System. The most common way is by communicating with a specialist regarding to a specific knowledge, extracting his/her expertise, and further transforming into an electronic document. The process of extracting expertise from specialist is called externalization. Externalization means to put something outside of its original borders, especially to put a human function outside of the human body (Wikipedia: Externalization, 2010). On the other hand, the process of absorbing such expertise and further turning it into a document is generally referred as internalization. Internalization is the long-term process of consolidating and embedding ones own beliefs,
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attitudes, and values, when it comes to moral behavior (Wikipedia: Internalization, 2010). And those are the two main processes for knowledge discovery and knowledge capturing. Different from the traditional way of capturing knowledge, the method for extracting knowledge/expertise presented in this paper is not based on face-to-face communication with a specialist for several reasons. First, supply chain management is a broad field and there are numbers of job titles as well as different responsibilities related to it. Thus, it is far more challenging for one specialist to define all the roles in the field because most of the time the description for a certain role is always ambiguous, and responsibilities of one specific title is also difficult to distinguish from companies to companies. Second, supply chain management is a much more dynamic field compared to other fields. That means the qualifications for one certain job title keeps changing all the time. For example, it is not required that a supply chain manager should be familiar with SAP/APO, MRP as well as other related information systems in the last 10 years. But as the time when information technology keeps changing the world, companies also have to adapt to such a new way of being smart in conducting businesses. Nowadays, supply chain managers have to be able to make use of information technology in order to manage things in a much more efficient manner. Therefore, without a thorough analysis of qualification required for a certain position, by simply communicating with a specialist is always not good enough to explore the information needed. Third, qualification is almost impossible to quantify accurately. If we take communication skills as an example, we could easily find out that it is too difficult to define whether a person has strong communication skills without actually meeting that person. The same reason applies to other qualifications required for a certain position. Hence, it is no way for a specialist to give a standard definition to classify whether or not a person has a strong ability in certain area. One possible way would be designing an algorithm for estimate
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purpose by transforming different levels of all the critical qualifications required for a certain role/title into numbers. In that case, each position could be simply indicated as a sum of confidence scores, which referred as qualification indicator, a person would probably be interested in taking the job which his/her qualification indicator lies in the score range in that job. In order to distinguish between different job positions and further explore the connection between students capabilities and job qualification, we look toward definitions implied or embedded within job descriptions. Job descriptions have several traits that make them attractive for constructing a definition of SCM based on current practice. First, job descriptions have to use words and phrases that are commonly understood by potential applicants, so the language of job descriptions is grounded in real practice. Second, job descriptions connote openings or gaps in a companys current human resource portfolio, so they represent distinct job competencies that company wishes to acquire (Allen, Mahto and Otondo, 2007). Because human resource needs are dynamic, especially in supply chain area, so too are job descriptions. Thus job descriptions as a whole define where a discipline is at that moment in time, rather than at some time in the past or future. Third, job descriptions must be accurate if the company is to hire the right person, and so they are written with some degree of care and concerns for the words that are chosen (Allen et al, 2007). As if searching for a job were not difficult enough, job description in supply chain management suffer from a blurring of responsibilities over titles, a lack of standard nomenclature for positions, and, often, a lack of distinction between ranks. That makes the knowledge discovery process far more challenging as anyone imagined. In the first case, the job description for a certain role may contain numbers of disciplines (WetFeet, 2010). For example, in a manufacturing firm, procurement or purchasing role might include inventory management
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responsibilities; whereas in a distribution or logistics firm, those same duties might fall within a transportation role (WetFeet, 2010). Besides, a standard nomenclature for supply chain management roles does not exist. Unlike the field of consulting, where the differences between analyst and associate/consultant are nearly universally understood, a single role in supply chain management might be called analyst, specialist, or coordinator, depending on the caprices of the company that set out the requisition for that position. The field does not readily distinguish between levels of seniority and expertise in job titles (WetFeet, 2010). For instance, within the same company, a PhD with 20 years of experience and profit/loss responsibility and a greenhorn with a freshly minted bachelors degree both may be called as a specialist. To simply this, the way used in this paper is by breaking down the roles into key areas: materials and procurement, logistics, supply chain management, transportation, inventory management, operations, sales and customer service, and consulting (WetFeet, 2010). The job position and description provided in this paper are not inclusive in supply chain area. Also, they are not based upon the recruiting requirement information of any company. Instead, it focus on rendering system users a general idea of different roles in supply chain, and further provide them with a guidance of each different position in a general point of view (Table 3.1). Area Materials and Procurement Roles Logistics Roles Supply Chain Management Roles Role Materials Scheduler Materials Analyst/Manager Production Analyst/Manager Procurement Analyst/Purchasing Manager Logistics Analyst/Manager Process Engineer Supply Chain Analyst Supply Chain Systems Manager
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Transportation Roles Inventory Management Roles Operations Roles Sales and Customer Service Roles

Consulting Roles

Supply Chain Manager Vice President, Supply Chain Management Transportation Manager Fleet Manager Inventory Specialist Vendor-Managed Inventory/Replenishment Specialist Warehouse Operation Manager Facilities Manager Account Specialist/Customer Service Customer Service Manager Account Manager/Supply Chain Sales Supply Chain Analyst Supply Chain Consultant Project Manager Director of Client Management/Engagement Manager

Table 3.1 Supply Chain Management Roles by Areas

In order to sum up the critical qualifications and skill sets regarding to one specific job title, we have to first take a deeper look at the job descriptions for each of those job titles, and then further summarize the key skill sets, including the basic business knowledge skills as well as the operation management specific skills, which are different from each job category to another. All the skill sets, no matter either it is the basic business knowledge skills or specific operational skills, are evaluated as five different levels in the system, skill levels include Poor, Weak, Average, Good, and Excellent. Each skill level will be assigned a confidence score regarding to that specific skill for each position. According to the second quarter report of employment outlook of APICS in 2010, there are about five to six areas of general business knowledge supervisors feel are the most important for a career in supply chain management no matter what kind of the job category is. Those general business knowledge or skill sets include (most important first) oral communications, written communications, operations, management, information systems, and statistics (APICS The Association for Operations Management, 2010).
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Any other specific operational skill sets (not inclusive) related to respective job title are discussed and explored in the following section.

3.1. CRITICAL SKILL SETS EXPLORATION

3.1.1. MATERIALS AND PROCUREMENT ROLES First of all, let us first explore the job descriptions for materials and procurement roles in supply chain management. For a materials scheduler, its major responsibility requires a strong ability of coordination in order to work with raw materials and inventory according to the production schedules. Materials schedulers also have to assure the finished products have the acceptable quality during the movement to the downward customers. Thus, a capable materials scheduler needs to have a basic knowledge of coordination, time management, and quality management as well. Besides, for the position of material analyst/manager, the major responsibilities and duties include managing inventory levels, coordinating with purchasing and materials budgeting and forecasting, warehousing, receiving as well as scheduling. In the job market, employers are more willing to hire those materials analysts who are familiar with just-in-time (JIT) or lean manufacturing knowledge, as well as basic knowledge of Six Sigma practices. Materials analyst also needs to work closely with engineering and product development teams for the sake of determining what affects changes in materials will have on the production of a product. At more senior levels, such as manager or director, they take on a strategic role to improve processes, quality, and productivity. Furthermore, for production managers, their responsibilities include coordinating production schedules, forecasting requirements of labor resources, maintaining product quality,
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determining material requirements, and managing inventory, input and output of finished goods. As with most manufacturing positions, a large number of companies are more desirable of seeking people with Six Sigma as well as lean manufacturing experience. Finally, for procurement analyst/purchasing manager, the primary responsibilities are monitoring an organizations purchasing operations. For junior roles, such as procurement analyst, they basically focus on a single aspect of procurement and purchasing. Generally, purchasing requires people have strong ability of identifying suppliers from which to source materials, selecting those suppliers, negotiating supply contracts, developing the business frameworks for those contracts, and managing suppliers. In senior management level, purchasing managers always work with materials managers and manufacturing departments in order to identify the material needs for the organization. Besides, purchasing managers should a certain ability of assessing, managing procurement costs, delivery times, service levels, and quality by developing metrics (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Materials and Procurement Roles Business Knowledge Skills Required Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Accounting

Specific Position-Related Skills Positions Critical Skill Sets Coordination, Time Management, Quality Materials Scheduler Management

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Materials Analyst/Manager

Coordination, Time Management, Quality Management, Inventory Management, Forecasting, JIT, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma Practices, Feasibility/Engineering/Product Development, Analytical Skills, Work Across Functions, Problem Discovering, Processes Improvement, Problem Solving

Production Analyst/Manager

Coordination, Time Management, Quality Management, Forecasting, Inventory Management, Analytical Skills, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma Practices Coordination, Time Management, Quality Management, Analytical Skills, Negotiation, Contract Development, Supplier Relationship Management, Assessment/Monitoring

Procurement Analyst/Purchasing Manager

Table 3.2 Critical Skill Sets For Materials and Procurement Roles

3.1.2. LOGISTICS ROLES After exploring the critical skill sets for materials and procurement roles, let us take a step further and discuss the skills needed for logistics roles. For logistics analysts/managers, they need to work on a wide range of logistics functions, including warehouse and distribution operations, forecasting, planning, logistics information systems, customer service, and purchasing. Moreover, managers should have strong abilities in dealing with suppliers and carriers, such as ability of negotiating. They need to develop supply chain metrics and strategy, and keep monitoring daily performance of logistics functions. On the other hand, analysts devote much of their time to problem solving, forecasting, and ensuring that operations are running with the alignment of predefined metrics. In sum, while all levels in the area require strong analytical

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skills and attention to detail, senior roles require outstanding interpersonal skills, as well as strong negotiation skills (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Logistics Roles Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Business Knowledge Skills Required

Specific Position-Related Skills Positions Critical Skill Sets Analytical skills, Attention to detail, Work across functions, Problem Solving, Forecasting, Negotiation, Supplier Relation Management, Assessment, Interpersonal Skills

Logistics Analyst/Manager

Table 3.3 Critical Skill Sets For Logistics Roles

3.1.3. SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT ROLES For process engineers, they have to analyze processes within any number of industries manufacturing, distribution and transportation, or retail and develop improved processes that make better, safer use of labor, materials, energy, and other resources. Additionally, process engineer might also need to develop the metrics used to manage the processes once improved. Additionally, for supply chain analysts, their primary responsibilities include supporting the supply chain manager through any number of activities, such as defining and articulating business processes, performing analysis on any aspect of the supply chain, evaluating vendors and potential supply chain partners, researching industry best practices, participating in meetings, and facilitating supply chain management goals to cross-functional teams.

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Again, for supply chain systems managers, their responsibilities include supporting logistics and supply chain operations through oversight and management of software systems such as SAP, MRP, and Oracle. Besides, they need to manage vendors and consultants, develop system requirements, report requirements, oversee analysts and developers, as well as communicate needs of business and technical functions. The systems manager have to possess knowledge of business processes, supply chain management practices, system design, and software and hardware design and the ability of communicate between technical and business groups. Whats more, the supply chain manager servers as the most important role in supply chain management and logistics both sought after and elusive. The supply chain manager reviews existing procedures and examines opportunities to streamline production, purchasing, warehousing, distribution, and financial forecasting to meet a companys needs. The job typically involves developing strategies to cut costs, improve quality and improve customer satisfaction. Also, supply chain managers need to know distribution center operations, transportation, supplier operations, operations management, cost-benefit analysis, process improvement, and logistics strategy. They should have excellent management and communications skills. And they must be able to not only develop solutions, but also drive their implementation across functional areas and through to vendor organizations and supply chain partners. Employers in the work force are more willing to hire people who have Six Sigma experience and, in manufacturing settings, lean manufacturing experience. Lastly, for vice president of supply chain management, he/she is always at the top of the supply chain management, and is part of the senior management team and usually reports to the chief operating officer of a company. The vice presidents purview often includes all supply
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chain functions, including logistics, facilities, and purchasing. The vice president should translate and facilitate executive strategies into supply chain functions. Directors of the various functional areas in supply chain often report to the vice president (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Supply Chain Management Roles Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Business Knowledge Skills Required

Positions

Specific Position-Related Skills Critical Skill Sets Analytical skills, Quantitative Skills, Attention to detail Analytical skills, Quantitative Skills, Attention to detail, JIT, Materials requirement planning, Understand contracts and tariffs, Self-directed, Facilitate change, Project Management, Work across functions

Process Engineer

Supply Chain Analyst

Supply Chain Systems Manager

Problem Solving, Business Processes, Supply Chain Management Practices, System Design, Software Design, Hardware Design, Ability to communicate between technical and business groups

Supply Chain Manager

Assessment, Forecasting, Strategy Development Customer Service, Process Improvement, Cost-benefit analysis, Logistics Strategy, Six Sigma experience, Lean Manufacturing Strategic thinker, Execution, Ability to interact at the highest levels, Six Sigma experience

Vice President of SCM

Table 3.4 Critical Skill Sets For Supply Chain Management Roles

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3.1.4. TRANSPORTATION ROLES The first role we need to explore here is transportation manager. Transportation managers typically work under logistics managers to oversee the inbound and outbound traffic of materials and finished products from a distribution center. Their major responsibilities of transportation manager include managing carriers, transportation costs within specified metrics, third-party transportation providers, and freight bill presentation. Also, they have to negotiate contracts, ensure that freight moves smoothly across international borders. The most importantly, they must be familiar with Department of Transportation regulations. In addition, for fleet managers, their responsibilities are supervising and managing a dedicated contract or private fleet. Duties include hiring and managing drivers, developing routes, ensuring that the fleet meets Department of Transportation regulations, and optimizing fleet utilization. The fleet manager also has to manage fleet inventory, ensures preventive maintenance takes place, and plans fleet growth requirements. Although it requires forecasting and analysis skills, the fleet manager is primarily a hands-on management role. Interpersonal skills are crucial to success in the position (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Transportation Roles Business Knowledge Skills Required Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Positions

Specific Position-Related Skills Critical Skill Sets

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Transportation Manager

Knowledge of inbound and outbound traffic of materials and finished products from DC, Carriers Relation Management, Transportation Costs Management, Assessment, Freight bill presentation, Negotiation, Familiar with Department of Transportation regulations Experience in hiring and managing drivers, Routes Development, Familiar with Department of Transportation regulations, Ability to optimize fleet utilization, Fleet inventory management, Fleet growth requirements planning, Forecasting, Analytical Skills, Interpersonal Skills

Fleet Manager

Table 3.5 Critical Skill Sets For Transportation Roles

3.1.5. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT ROLES Let us further discuss the skill sets needed for inventory management roles. Firstly, for inventory specialist, the major responsibilities are to optimize inventory level based on the costs of inventory and warehousing, service levels, and replenishment time and costs. Duties include working with supply chain managers to determine optimal inventory levels, analyzing historical sales data and seasonal demand to determine inventory needs, analyzing processes to determine replenishment cycles, and resolving issues related to inventory levels and replenishment. The inventory specialist role requires keen analytical skills and the ability to work at a level of high detail. Secondly, for vendor-managed inventory (VMI) specialists, they work for a manufacturer to manage the inventory of a customer. Their major responsibilities for VMI specialist include managing product inventory, optimizing inventory levels. Also, the specialists have to work with client to determine optimal inventory level and get the data needed to carry out the task by using sales activity, promotions data, and historical data. Moreover, the VMI specialist works with
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teams from both the vendor and client companies to ensure that manufacturing and demand are synchronized. The VMI specialist must not only possess knowledge of supply chain processes and analytical skills, but also the ability to instill confidence in a customer whose business depends on proper inventory management (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Inventory Management Roles Business Knowledge Skills Required Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Specific Position-Related Skills Positions Critical Skill Sets Analytical Skills, Ability to work at a level of high detail, Inventory Management, Ability to determine Inventory Specialist optimal inventory levels, Ability to analyze historical sales data/seasonal demand, Ability to analyze processes, Problem solving VMI/Replenishment Specialist Knowledge of supply chain processes, Analytical Skills, Ability to instill confidence in customers, Inventory Management

Table 3.6 Critical Skill Sets For Inventory Management Roles

3.1.6. OPERATIONS ROLES For operations roles, first of all, the warehouse operations managers used to work in the retail or distribution and transportation industries. Their responsibilities include managing the placement of inventory within the warehouse, ensuring the accuracy of inventory levels, overseeing warehouse personnel, and making certain that the warehouse meets regulatory safety requirements. The position requires people to have impeccable communication skills across educational and demographic strata, leadership skills, and some analytical skills.
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Besides, for facilities managers, the major responsibilities include managing the physical building and machinery required to keep an operation such as a distribution center running smoothly. Thus, they have to manage maintenance of equipment, plan for contingencies should equipment fail, and plan requirements for new property and equipment. Also, facilities managers often work with outside vendors to develop training on equipment and negotiate maintenance contract with vendors (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Operation Roles Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Business Knowledge Skills Required

Specific Position-Related Skills Positions Critical Skill Sets Knowledge of retail, distribution, or transportation industries, Inventory Management, Knowledge of Safe Stock, Leadership Skills, Analytical Skills, Interpersonal Skills Knowledge of managing maintenance of equipment, Experience in contingencies management, Experience in new property and equipment planning, Vendor Management, Negotiation

Warehouse Operations Manager

Facilities Manager

Table 3.7 Critical Skill Sets For Operation Roles

3.1.7. SALES AND CUSTOMER SERVICE ROLES To begin with, account specialist/customer service usually serves as an entry-level position for newly minted supply chain management majors. A specialist typically works at a logistics or transportation firm and is assigned a customer for whom he serves as primary contact. The major

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responsibilities for account specialist include resolving customer service issues for a client, building relationship with clients and carriers, and coordinating shipments for the client. Again, for customer service managers, their primary responsibilities are to lead teams of customer service representatives in resolving issues and maintaining high customer satisfaction. The role involves ensuring that contractual support representatives meet contractual service levels, defining those service levels, developing support center processes, and working with other functional areas to control service costs while maintaining customer satisfaction. Last but not the least, supply chain account managers typically sell supply chain, outsourcing, or third-party logistics solutions to customers in specific industries. Responsibilities include developing, along with specialists, a solution for a proposed customer, and further ensuring that the customer is satisfied with the solution provided and finding additional solutions for follow-up work. The account manager must be able to instill the client with enough confidence to hand over critical supply chain functions to the vendor firm (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Sales and Customer Service Roles Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Business Knowledge Skills Required

Specific Position-Related Skills Positions Critical Skill Sets Experience in resolving customer service issues, Knowledge of building relationships with clients and carriers, Ability of coordinating shipments for clients

Account Specialist/Customer Service

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Customer Service Manager

Knowledge of defining service levels, Knowledge of developing support center processes, Ability to work across functions, Knowledge of maintaining customer satisfaction Ability to improve sales, Knowledge of solution development, Ability to maintain customer satisfaction, Ability to work across functions

Account Manager/Supply Chain Sales

Table 3.8 Critical Skill Sets For Sales and Customer Service Roles

3.1.8. CONSULTING ROLES In the last section, we are going to discuss and explore the skill sets needed for consulting roles. First of all, supply chain analysts typically define business processes and then apply software system such as SAP, to improve and automate those systems. Generally, analysts interview people in manufacturing, inventory, logistics, warehousing, and procurement functions to determine a companys business processes and supply chain requirements. They then match these requirements against the features of a software package and work with application developers to customize that package to the clients needs. Moreover, for supply chain consultants, their primary responsibilities are to review existing procedures and examine opportunities for streamlining production, purchasing, warehousing, and distribution to meet a companys needs. Then they develop strategies to cut costs, improve quality, and improve customer satisfaction. Lastly, SCM consultants also need excellent management and communication skills. Besides, project managers typically lead consulting teams in the day-to-day management of client engagements. They often directly supervise analysts and work with consultants to ensure that a project is implemented according to agreed-on time and cost metrics. Their primary
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responsibilities are communicating with clients, marshalling firm and client resources, and working to ensure the project goes according to plan. Finally, the director of client management/engagement manager usually works for an outsourcer such as a third-party logistics or consulting firm. In a logistics firm, the director of client management typically manages account managers and sales staff, sets sales targets for managers, determines the strategy and value proposition of the outsourcer, and works with account managers to tailor strategies to specific clients. In a consulting firm, the engagement manager typically oversees a consulting engagement at the executive level (WetFeet, 2010). Critical Skill Sets For Consulting Roles Oral Communication, Written Communication, Operations, Information Systems, Management, Statistics

Business Knowledge Skills Required

Specific Position-Related Skills Positions Critical Skill Sets Ability to define business processes, Ability to customize software packages, Ability to work across functions, Interpersonal Skills, Knowledge of software development Ability to find out problems, Problem Solving, Ability to streamline different functions, Knowledge of cutting costs, Quality Management, Ability to improve customer satisfaction Leadership Skills, Ability to communicate with clients, Assessment, Problem Solving, Analytical Skills

Supply Chain Analyst

Supply Chain Consultant

Project Manager

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Director of Client Management/Engagement Manager

Ability to manage account managers and sales staff, Ability to set sales targets, Ability to determine the strategy and value proposition, Ability to tailor strategy, Interpersonal Skills, Leadership Skills

Table 3.9 Critical Skill Sets For Consulting Roles

3.2. COURSE EXPLORATION

According to the Graduate School Bulletin of University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2010-2011), courses in supply chain management area include: SCM 601: Supply Chain Management Concepts and Principles SCM 602: Supply Chain Design & Cost Issues SCM 606: Logistics and Transportation in the Supply Chain SCM 607: Distribution Center Operations and Management SCM 608: Contracts & Negotiations in Supply Chain Management SCM 610: Transportation & Carrier Management SCM 612: E-Commerce for Managing Supply Chains SCM 620: Purchasing & Procurement SCM 630: Global Supply Operation SCM 640: Special Topics in Supply Chain Management SCM 641: Supply Chain, Logistics, and Transportation Management (SCLTM) Internship SCM 642: Executive Mentorship in Supply Chain & Logistics Management

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Based on the course descriptions in Bryan Online (2010), we could further be categorized those courses in different supply chain functions (Table 3.10): Function Materials and Procurement Logistics Supply Chain Management Transportation Inventory Management Operations Sales and Customer Service Consulting Course SCM-601, SCM-602, SCM-620 SCM-601, SCM-602, SCM-606, SCM-607 SCM-601, SCM-602, SCM-630, SCM-640 SCM-601, SCM-606, SCM-610 SCM-601, SCM-602, SCM-620 SCM-601, SCM-602, SCM-630 SCM-601, SCM-608, SCM-612 SCM-601, SCM-602

Table 3.10 Course of Different Functions in Supply Chain Management

3.3. ALGORITHM
The basic idea for generating recommendation of the most desirable position is to assign confidence scores to the answers provided by the users in each skill sets related question. After the users finished answering all the questions, a final score would be assigned to each position of the selected role. Then, all the possible positions recommended by the system would be listed from the most desirable to less desirable to the users in the final page. Moreover, the confidence score for each possible position would also be shown to the users for comparison purposes. Before we start discussing the mechanism used for assigning confidence score, there are a couple of things needed to understand. First of all, throughout the automatic counseling process, there are two types of questions that would be asked by the system. Questions include: 1. Yes or No question, which is asked based on academic knowledge-based skills; and 2. Qualitative question, each of which could provide five different answers to choose: poor, weak, average, good, and excellent. And such question is asked based on experience-based skills. Also, as we could see in the previous section, there are two types of positions in each function; they are the
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junior level of positions, such as material analyst, and the senior level of positions, such as production manager. Thus, for questions which are planning to evaluate users abilities, experiences, knowledge for certain skills, rules for assigning confidence score could be summarized as follows. 1. For those skill sets which are exclusively or predominantly required in certain junior/senior positions, confidence scores are assigned based on the following rules (Table 3.11): Yes/No Questions Answer Confidence Score Assigned Yes +15 No -15 Qualitative Questions Answer Confidence Score Assigned Poor -15 Weak -10 Average +10 Good +15 Excellent +20
Table 3.11 Algorithm of Confidence Assignment (1)

2. For those skill sets which are not clearly be distinguished between junior and senior positions, it is assumed that senior positions is required higher level for such skills compared with junior positions, that means if users perform higher level in such skills, they would have higher possibility to be fit in senior roles. Therefore, the confidence scores are assigned based on following rules (Table 3.12): Yes/No Questions Confidence Score Assigned Junior Position Senior Position +5 +10 -5 -10 Qualitative Questions
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Answer Yes No

Answer Poor Weak Average Good Excellent

Confidence Score Assigned Junior Position Senior Position -5 -15 N/A -10 +5 N/A +10 +15 N/A +20

Table 3.12 Algorithm of Confidence Assignment (2)

4. SYSTEM DESIGN
Since the scope of system is too big to be explored in details, we would decide to focus on materials and procurement role in supply chain as an example, and further discuss the variables created as well as the rules generated throughout the processes. As mentioned in the previous section, positions in materials and procurement function include materials scheduler, material analyst/manager, production analyst/manager, and procurement analyst/purchasing manager. According to the skill sets we summarized in section 2.1.1, skill sets which are exclusively or predominately required in certain positions include (Table 4.1): Position Materials Analyst Materials Manager Purchasing Manager Skill Sets Knowledge/Experience in Engineering, Product Development Knowledge of Process Improvement Ability of Assessment/Monitoring

Table 4.1 Exclusive Skill Sets For Certain Positions

Based on the skill sets and the algorithm define before, we established the following set of variables in Corvid. The induction tables thus created appear below (Table 4.2). (The order of the variables is not directly related to the order of the questions.)

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Static List 1. Oral Communication Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: BUS_Oral_Communication 2. Written Communication Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: BUS_Written_Communication 3. Operations Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: BUS_Operations 4. Information Systems Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: BUS_Info_Systems 5. Management Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: BUS_Management 6. Accounting Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: BUS_Accounting 7. Analytical Skill Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Analytical 8. Assessment Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Assessment 9. Contract Development Yes, No Name: MP_Skill_Contract_Development 10. Coordination Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Coordination 11. Engineering & Product Development Yes, No Name: MP_Skill_Engineering_PD 12. Forecasting Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Forecasting 13. Inventory Management Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Inventory_Mgt
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14. JIT, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma Yes, No Name: MP_Skill_JIT_Lean_Six_Sigma 15. Negotiation Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Negotiation 16. Problem Finding, Analyzing, Solving Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Problem_FAS 17. Process Improvement Yes, No Name: MP_Skill_Process_Improvement 18. Quality Management Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Quality_Mgt 19. Supplier Management Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Supplier_Mgt 20. Time Management Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_Time_Mgt 21. Work Across Functions Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Excellent Name: MP_Skill_WAF 22. Supply Chain Management Area To Choose Materials and Procurement, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Transportation, Inventory Management, Operations, Sales and Customer Service, Consulting Name: Area_SCM
Table 4.2 Static Variables List

The next set of variables (below) is the confidence list that each of those would be assigned confidence score based on the algorithm during the process (Table 4.3). Confidence List 1. Materials Analyst Name: MP_Materials_Analyst 2. Materials Manager Name: MP_Materials_Manager
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3. Materials Scheduler Name: MP_Materials_Scheduler 4. Procurement Analyst Name: MP_Procurement_Analyst 5. Production Analyst Name: MP_Production_Analyst 6. Production Manager Name: MP_Production_Manager 7. Purchasing Manager Name: MP_Purchasing_Manager
Table 4.3 Confidence Variables List

After defining all the variables needed, the following section indicates the rules for assigning confidence score to specific position in materials and procurement area. All the rules are based on the algorithm and the skill sets we discussed in the previous section. In the following section, we only discuss part of rules needed to develop the system (Table 4.4). RULE 1: IF BUS_Oral_Communication = Poor, THEN [MP_Materials_Analyst] = -5, [MP_Materials_Manager] = -15, [MP_Materials_Scheduler] = -5, [MP_Procurement_Analyst] = -5, [MP_Production_Analyst] = -5, [MP_Production_Manager] = -15, [MP_Purchasing_Manager] = -15. RULE 2: IF BUS_Oral_Communication = Weak, THEN [MP_Materials_Manager] = -10, [MP_Prodution_Manager] = -10, [MP_Purchasing_Manager] = -10. RULE 3: IF BUS_Oral_Communication = Average, THEN [MP_Materials_Analyst] = 5, [MP_Materials_Scheduler] = 5, [MP_Procurement_Analyst] = 5, [MP_Production_Analyst] =5.

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RULE 4: IF BUS_Oral_Communication = Good, THEN [MP_Materials_Analyst] = 10, [MP_Materials_Manager] = 15, [MP_Materials_Scheduler] = 10, [MP_Procurement_Analyst] = 10, [MP_Production_Analyst] =10, [MP_Production_Manager] = 15, [MP_Purchasing_Manager] = 15. RULE 5: IF BUS_Oral_Communication = Excellent, THEN [MP_Materials_Manager] = 20, [MP_Production_Manager] = 20, [MP_Purchasing_Manager] = 20. RULE 6: IF MP_Skill_Engineering_PD = Yes, THEN [MP_Materials_Analyst] = 15 ELSE [MP_Materials_Analyst] = -15 RULE 7: IF MP_Skill_JIT_Lean_Six_Sigma = Yes, THEN [MP_Materials_Analyst] = 5, [MP_Material_Manager] = 10, [MP_Production_Analyst] = 5, [MP_Production_Manager] = 10. ELSE [MP_Materials_Analyst] = -5, [MP_Material_Manager] = -10, [MP_Production_Analyst] = -5, [MP_Production_Manager] = -10.
Table 4.4 Rule Table

Table 4.4 indicates the rules needed to assign confidence scores to specific positions based on the algorithm for oral communication skills, which academic knowledge skills are not clearly be distinguished between junior and senior positions; experiences in engineering/product development, which experience-based skills are exclusively or predominantly required in the position of materials analyst; and experiences/knowledge of JIT, lean manufacturing, and Six Sigma practices, which experience-based skills are not clearly be distinguished between junior
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and senior positions. Such same series of rules could also be applied to other skill sets which skills are in the same category.

5. CONCLUSIONS
The system was designed to provide graduate students with preliminary information about job types and functions in supply chain management arena, including SCM roles, job descriptions, education requirements, qualifications, critical skill sets, as well as course information in UNCG which is beneficial for career exploration, based on user input of selfevaluation of specific competencies in the field. Recommendation generated is based on the predefine algorithm which matches the critical skill sets extracted from specific roles description with the self-evaluation of users competencies. Then the system would further assign the confidence scores to each of those related roles based on the user input. In its present status, the system is limited in its ability to complete all the functions in supply chain management because the software (Corvid) we used only provide us with the limited nodes to build in the design stage. However, the system still works well if we limit the systems scope within the materials and procurement role and reduce the number of critical skill sets for exploration. Finally, the system is not merely limited to supply chain management arena for its future development. It is believed that such system could also be extended its scope to other academic areas, such as business, mathematics. And there are numbers of benefits if such system could extend to other academic field, such as cutting down the costs for hiring career counselors in college, saving the time for students in counseling processes. However, developers have to consider seriously the critical skill sets in certain field before they actually extend the scope and
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functionality. As for the area of supply chain management, we know that the job description of supply chain management is used to be dynamic and it is challenging to give a standard definition for certain title in the field because the description, requirement, and qualification for certain job might be different from companies to companies. That means as system developers in career counseling, they need to keep focusing on the changes for the field they are developing for, and keep updating the data if needed.

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REFERENCES
Allen, D., Mahto, R. and Otondo, R. (2007), Web-Based Recruitment: Effects of Information, Organization Brand, and Attitudes Towards a Web Site on Application Attraction, Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(6), 1696-1708. APICS The Association for Operations Management (2010), The Operations Management Employment Outlook, Second Quarter 2010, APICS Member Report by APICS The Association for Operations Management at University of North Carolina Wilmington, pp. 12. Bryan Online (2010), Courses Descriptions in Supply Chain, Logistics & Transportation Management, available at http://www.uncg.edu/bae/online/Supply_Course_Desc.html. Accessed November 26, 2010. Exsys.com (2010), What is Exsys Corvid?, available at http://www.exsys.com/qa.html. Accessed November 22, 2010. Graduate School Bulletin of University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2010-2011), PostBaccalaureate Certificate in Supply Chain, Logistics, and Transportation Management, pp. 158, available at http://www.uncg.edu/grs/bulletin/archive/10-11Catalog.pdf. Accessed November 26, 2010. WetFeet (2010), Supply Chain Management, available at http://www.wetfeet.com/Careersand-Industries/Careers/Supply-Chain-Management.aspx. Accessed November 19, 2010. Wikipedia: Externalization (2010), Externalization, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalization. Accessed November 24, 2010. Wikipedia: Internalization (2010), Internalization, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internalization. Accessed November 24, 2010. Wikipedia: KMS (2010), Knowledge Management System, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management_system. Accessed November 19, 2010.

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