Supply Chain Management (and Operations) made the list. 43% (SCM)/65% (Ops) large impact – “refers to tasks that will be fully automated or significantly altered by AI technologies.” In case you want to see what we cover in our AI course, see the screenshot below. Our analytics faculty have built an AI course in our business college (CIS 5550) to cover all kinds of AI for business applications. AI embedded modules in existing courses will be added.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-the-jobs-most-impacted-by-ai/
How Global Companies Use AI to Prevent Supply Chain Disruptions: https://lnkd.in/eZZ_zxb3:.
How Machine Learning Will Transform SCM (our data mining class): https://lnkd.in/evuy-3yZ.
Hmm…“American college students are behind in using AI in their studies compared to their foreign counterparts.” https://lnkd.in/gngZxKry.
Maybe not…This is the whole reason that we created our new AI course – to create AI awareness and skills, and it is designed for non-technical majors.
Per conversations with our CIS faculty…
Generative AI is just a small set of AI. Comparing the use of it across countries might not give you a whole picture of AI use by students. Our faculty have been very clear that WMU’s education strategy should not be just about ChatGPT or generative AI. There is a whole lot more AI coming our way. The key to our educational survival is to master the symbiotic relationships with AI, especially the kind of symbiosis that gives you a lasting competitive edge. Buying an AI program as a cheap way to get that “edge” might not last long. The entry barrier is too low. Anyone buying that program will be as good or even better than you.
WMU also offers new course on the intersection of AI and writing: https://lnkd.in/g476QVTS.
How will AI impact your future? https://lnkd.in/g4cci-tA
AI @ WMU: A Deep Dive into the Resources: https://lnkd.in/g2EZvtPz.
https://lnkd.in/gDRwA3iA
https://lnkd.in/gtwzctNi
WMU-Facing the future: AI is evolving at warp speed—but at what cost? https://lnkd.in/ggVYhDPV.
Will AI really kill the tools we teach like Excel?
Would you trust the developer who built your software with a 3rd party code generation tool? Maybe. We are not going to stop teaching Excel in very sophisticated ways. All of our supply chain majors are required to take: CIS 2640 Predictive Data Analytics (Excel on steroids): https://lnkd.in/dQABdsXc.
So, Excel + AI = more SCM success.
We all agree there is nothing wrong w/ using these code generators as long as you understand the generated code & know how to fix it when needed. Rarely will the generated code be enough to suit your needs. The more realistic scenario is to use the tool to generate the base code & modify it manually for the intended problems.
Many orgs PROBABLY do not want their employees to use AI for any calculations like this. So, in all of the above scenarios, skills in our Adv Excel class (& all of our Data Analytics classes) are still relevant.
Note (for college teaching), I would caution from combining too many AI “branches” (see screen shot) into specific single courses that are focused on functional disciplines (i.e., Marketing, Finance, etc.). These courses can be a very aggressive approach by combining too many branches of AI into one single course. You have to ask, do you want the course to be a general “overview” or a “skill-building” course? I would encourage all business disciplines to collaborate (rather than go solo) with their CIS/AI faculty. For us, we have multiple courses in the business college covering a variety branches of AI, so far:
1. AI Introduction: CIS 5550 – Artificial Intelligence in Business
2. Machine learning branch: CIS 4640 – Business Data Mining and CIS 6640 – Predictive Analytics and Data Mining
3. Automation and visualization branch: CIS 3640 – Visual Analytics and CIS 6500 – Visual Analytics
4. Big Data branch: CIS 5650 – Big Data Analytics
5. AI in Functional areas:
a. CIS 6410: Financial data analytics
b. MKTG 5980 – Artificial Intelligence in Food & Marketing
How Machine Learning Will Transform Supply Chain Management:
https://hbr.org/2024/03/how-machine-learning-will-transform-supply-chain-management
Note, we cover this in our CIS 4640 Business Data Mining class which is the capstone class in our Business Analytics minor. The forecast-driven idea is something that our CIS faculty have been selling to SCM students in this course. In fact, more than 70% of the class is about forecasting and predicting. We specifically talk about data quality treatment strategies to reduce forecasting/prediction errors. CIS 4640 – Business Data Mining:
This course focuses on the theoretical understanding & practical applications of data mining as a decision support tool. Specifically, it covers several types of modeling techniques & tools such as prediction, classification, segmentation & association detection algorithms. Students are introduced to the state-of-the-art data mining applications software such as SAS Enterprise Miner or SPSS Clementine for their class assignments & term project.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sime-curkovic-61617a115_how-machine-learning-will-transform-supply-activity-7172205741678780416-xyyH?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Note, we cover this in our CIS 4640 Business Data Mining class which is the capstone class in our Business Analytics minor. The forecast-driven idea is something that our CIS faculty have been selling to SCM students in this course. In fact, more than 70% of the class is about forecasting and predicting. We specifically talk about data quality treatment strategies to reduce forecasting/prediction errors. CIS 4640 – Business Data Mining:
This course focuses on the theoretical understanding & practical applications of data mining as a decision support tool. Specifically, it covers several types of modeling techniques & tools such as prediction, classification, segmentation & association detection algorithms. Students are introduced to the state-of-the-art data mining applications software such as SAS Enterprise Miner or SPSS Clementine for their class assignments & term project.
Another thought, one thing often not mentioned is the attitude of hiring managers, as many do not have a full understanding of the AI and/or automation skill sets of graduating students. Our SCM students told us many times that their hiring managers valued only the traditional Excel capabilities (lookup functions, pivot tables, etc. – that is NOT AI), & they greatly overlooked the opportunities from other analytical solutions (skill sets that our students have). This makes it a bit difficult to sell the analytical techniques taught in classes that go BEYOND our CIS 2640 (Excel on steroids) – Applied Analytics Foundations.
For example, our data mining class is essentially a machine learning class for business, which is the core of AI. The course is designed to solve the problems that Excel falls short on. Hopefully we do a better job of training our students to “sell” the AI skills & managers (SCM Leaders) become more open to embracing the benefits (which might require a culture change).
Employers: many SCM students going into the workforce have these skill sets:
1. Advanced Excel (power query & pivot) & macros;
2. Data visualization (Tableau,Power BI & python w/ seaborn & matplotlib);
3. Data mining/RapidMiner, machine learning & data science;
4. Python & Jupyter notebook (data analytics & statistical libraries such as pandas, numpy);
5. Relational data models (Excel data model);
6. Graphic & statistical libraries (Seaborn,Matplotlib,Pandas, & Plotly).
https://lnkd.in/eqiqSMRb
You will be glad to hear that (Anaconda+Jupyter Notebook+Python+visualization libraries) is what we have been teaching in CIS 2650 since the course was created. CIS courses in our BA minor: https://lnkd.in/gxHRzjkE.
Is Python a must-have skill in the supply chain? How much Python do I need? https://lnkd.in/gtmcDtmW.
CIS 2640 (Our Predictive Data Analytics class, Excel on steroids): https://lnkd.in/dQABdsXc.
https://lnkd.in/er3xiWj & https://lnkd.in/dcEJuZJX.
Grad Cert: https://lnkd.in/gJetuSjB.