Using the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module in MG215 - Supply Chain and Operations Fundamentals

Euthemia (Effie) Stavrulaki, Bentley University

Course Description

Supply Chain and Operations are the core activities of any organization. Simply put, a business cannot function unless it successfully manages its operations and supply chain processes to source, produce and deliver the right product to the right customer at the right time. This course introduces the fundamentals of operations and supply chain management and discusses how coordinating supplier and internal processes creates value for the customer, the company, and society at large. The course highlights how optimizing the flow of goods, services and information creates supply chains that are both efficient (minimizing costs and waste) and effective (meeting or exceeding customer expectations). Throughout this course, students will examine the environmental and social impact of supply chain activities and explore how innovative solutions can resolve the tradeoffs between satisfying customer needs, maintaining healthy profits, and addressing environmental and social challenges.

Explore the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module »

Relationship of the Zero-Waste Circular Economy Module to Your Course

The course is a typical 13-week semester course. The model was implemented a little before the half-way point of the course. Prior to the start of the module, we had talked about the role of operations and supply chain management when thinking about the Triple Bottom Line (Profit, People, Planet).

Integrating the Module into Your Course

I integrated this module into a second-year undergraduate course called Operations and Supply Chain Management Fundamentals. We used the wicked problem for the circular economy, focusing on smartphones as the specific product for student projects.

What Worked Well

Spreading the material across two weeks of the semester was particularly effective, allowing students ample time to engage with the activities and assignments for this wicked problem. I dedicated the first class to setting the context, reviewing the concept of wicked problems, discussing the challenges of circular economies, and outlining expectations for each assignment. This approach effectively set the stage for the students' work and emphasized the importance of the topic.

Challenges and How They Were Addressed

I encountered a couple of challenges related to the gallery tour. While reviewing the students' PowerPoint presentations before the tour, I noticed some teams were confused about discussing their assigned phase of the smartphone lifecycle. For example, a team assigned to the extraction phase might provide solutions related to consumer usage instead. To address this, I asked students at the start of class to watch for such misalignments and provide constructive feedback during the gallery tour. In the future, I plan to revise the assignment instructions to emphasize that proposed solutions need to match the assigned lifecycle phase more clearly. Another challenge was that some students seemed less engaged during the gallery tour. I addressed this by asking students to rotate taking a lead role as they moved from station to station. This resulted in previously disengaged students taking a more active role in collecting feedback and ideas from their team and posting them on the board, leading to a more engaged classroom overall.

Student Response to the Module and Activities

Overall, the response was positive. Students' reflections and assignments indicated a better understanding of the challenges in creating a circular economy and a greater awareness of their own environmental impact in day-to-day life. They proposed reasonable ideas for making smartphone supply chains more circular and seemed to enjoy the active components, such as sharing what they learned, doing research within their teams, and participating in the gallery tour. I believe they grasped how supply chain decisions can contribute to making products and services more circular.