BA (Hons) Business and Supply Chain Management

In this module, you will learn about the role of a project and project manager in organisations and the concepts and techniques required to manage the core aspects of a project.

The main topics covered include the core knowledge areas outlined in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) published by Project Management Institute (PMI) as well as essential fundamental theories, knowledge, and techniques required to manage a project in contemporary business settings.

These topics include:
• Defining project characteristics, lifecycle, and activities.
• Understanding how projects drive change and achieve strategic goals in organisations.
• Realising the role of the project and project manager in various organisational structures and cultures.
• Managing core project aspects, such as stakeholder relationships, scope, cost, schedule, and risk.
• Distinguishing traditional, agile, and extreme project management approaches.

Drawing on contemporary project management research and business case studies, this module will develop your knowledge, skills, and confidence in managing projects and your learning with take place though lectures and practical IT workshops. Your learning will expose you to a wide range of project management examples (successful and unsuccessful) and project management approaches (classic and contemporary) to broaden your understanding of project management in a dynamic business setting. You will be given opportunities to work as a team and develop essential project management documents for a chosen project.

On completing this module, you will be able to utilise appropriate project management techniques and technical skills to effectively and efficiently manage different projects and you will be able to critically challenge the assumptions and existing practices in project management.

The module aims to help you with using knowledge of business and management to understand the management of innovations in supply chains. The module is delivered to you using weekly lectures and seminars.

Within this module, you will cover five main topics:

• Types of innovations (e.g., product innovation, process innovation, organisational innovation, supply chain innovation and eco innovation).

• Innovation processes.

• Knowledge management for innovation.

• Relating in business networks for managing innovations.

• Introduction to selected process and organisational innovations in supply chains.

The module will lead you to the development of a basic understanding of the different facets associated with supply chain innovation. In doing so, it will expose you to a wide range of supply chain innovation theories and frameworks. You will become aware of the role the management of supply chain innovations plays in the wider business context. Furthermore, you will gain an understanding of the role of knowledge management in relation to the management of innovations in supply chains, the drivers for these innovations, the ways in which such innovations can be managed and different aspects associated with the relational nature of managing supply chain innovations.

On completing the module you will have developed an understanding of different types of supply chain innovations, approaches to managing knowledge for supply chain innovation and the relational nature of such innovations. You will also be able to Identify contemporary professional practice in business and management and understand how it is informed by theory and research.

In this module, you will experience an extensive coverage on logistics and supply networks. The module will enhance your strategic understanding about the complexities involved in supply network design and its architecture and you will learn to manage the supply networks strategically in a global and local context.

The module provides an understanding of the physical movements of goods through supply chain networks, the networks of organisations involved, and the modes of transport used. The module will explore logistical and network solutions for real business distribution problems across both inland and overseas operations and the challenges and future opportunities of logistics providers/freight operators in the balancing of sustainability priorities. The key themes include:

Network design and architecture

Warehouse trends, design, and management

Transportation systems and Intermodality

Forecasting and Inventory management

Logistics and Distribution networks

Supply network theory

Automation and warehouse management

Industry 4.0

The module also focuses on transport as a service to the public, both domestically and internationally, examining the allied industries it supports. It also provides an appreciation of the socio-political debate surrounding the sustainability of different transport modes, industry agendas and governance frameworks, whilst considering the realities of such debates when serving and operating in local and international environments.



At the end of the module, you will be able to critically assess the strategic management of particular specialist areas of business such as logistics and supply chain management and apply and critically appraise this knowledge to relevant business and management contexts. You will learn to conduct contemporary research into logistics and supply management. In doing so, you will learn to develop your interpersonal communication skills and ability to work in teams. You will develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills that contributes to your personal and professional development.

The module aims to provide you with the knowledge and critical appreciation in applying a variety of sustainable supply chain management at the subject interface to support business strategic decision making in this area of subject. The module is delivered to you using weekly webinar lectures and class-based seminars, principally concentrating on the development of critical appraisal and interpretation of the subject area.


Within this module, you will cover twelve main topics:

Logistics Planning Systems and Global Supply Chain Management (SCM).

Relationship Management.

Benchmarking the Supply Chain.

Strategies for JIT and Quick Response Logistics.

Strategies for agile and lean Supply Chain.

e-supply chain, social big data and omni channels.

Strategic Procurement.

Supply chain resilience and mitigation strategies.

Sustainable and reverse logistics.

Business policies for global sustainable supply chain.

Business strategies and socially responsible Supply Chains.

Lean and Six Sigma.



You will undertake various seminar and case study exercises to build the critical understanding of these strategies for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to support your group and individual assignment work. In doing so, it will expose you to a wide range of subject techniques and academic theories in the emerging sustainable supply chain topic areas. You will become aware of the role of the subject in the broader business context. Furthermore, you will gain an understanding of the role of the Supply Chain Manager and the development of various related business problem solving competencies.

On completing the module you will be able to understand sustainable supply chain policies, select, apply and critically appraise the appropriate strategies to support business problem solving in a variety of situations. You will have developed relevant competencies to support the theoretical material introduced throughout the module. You will create and design appropriate case study solutions as well as the use of a supporting theoretical underpin to SSCM problem solving.

The Management Enquiry module is a student-led individual project that enables you to undertake a significant piece of assessed work commensurate with a capstone module. The module aims to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate an authentic engagement with managers and/or professionals in your discipline, and to integrate the knowledge you have developed during your programme to explore the theory in practice. The learning on this module is experiential and problem based, where the focus is upon you discovering, probing and questioning key practice-based issues. Through the module you will be offered the opportunity to develop and enhance key transferable employability skills including; time management, project management, communication (written, aural and verbal), negotiation, persuasion and influence, discovery, initiative, problem-solving and analysis.

The module has five thematic areas; explore, review, engage, reflect and connect. These form the key elements of the assessed submission.

Part A (35%, 3,500 Words)
• Explore: Interviewing a manager and/or professional in your discipline. In this interview you will either explore a key issue which you feel the discipline is facing or, alternatively, explore with the manager or professional the key issues that they feel they are facing in practice. It is expected that you will apply appropriate interview methods and provide evidence of the interview within the submitted enquiry report (e.g. within the appendices).
• Review: Critically examining the appropriate literature to support the exploration, displaying an ability to critically assess and appraise the knowledge of your discipline related to a specific key issue arising from your exploration.

Part B (65%, 6,500 Words)
• Engage: Displaying an authentic engagement with the discipline problem/issue identified in Part A, by collecting/generating and analysing further live data (beyond the initial interview) regarding the discipline problem/issue. This live data may be primary data (e.g. further interviews with, or questionnaire to, managers and/or professionals in practice) or secondary data (e.g. industry data). Application of appropriate, ethically-considered, research methods and appropriate qualitative or quantitative data analysis.
• Reflect and Connect: Demonstrating an ability to critically evaluate and reflect on the issues arising from the Management Enquiry. Demonstrating how you have connected and fed-back to the participants of the Enquiry (usually the manager and/or participants) your key findings to provide clear prioritised, well-justified, practical and actionable recommendations for change/enhancement/improvement to existing practice to show how the recommendations would potentially affect workplace professional decision making.

The dissertation module aims to equip you with the necessary intellectual and practical skills for undertaking an individual student-led, ethical investigation into an applied business (or the named degree) problem or issue. In addition, the dissertation aims to equip you with key transferable, employability skills, including: time management, project management, communication (written and verbal), negotiation, persuasion and influence, discovery, initiative, creativity and innovation in problem-solving, analysis.

The module is student-led but you are supported by, initially, weekly lectures and seminar-workshops which provide an introduction to undertaking Business-Management research followed by one-to-one or small-group supervision meetings.
The lectures and seminar-workshops will cover the following topics:
1. Developing a research aim/question (focusing and scoping the research)
2. Developing a literature review
3. Writing a research proposal
4. Researching ethically
5. Quantitative research techniques
6. Qualitative research techniques
7. Quantitative analysis techniques
8. Qualitative analysis techniques

Upon completion of the module you will be able to:
1. Conduct independent and ethical academic research involving the application and critical evaluation of appropriate theories and models,
2. Engage critically with relevant literature to establish a framework in which to analyse and synthesise the results of your primary or secondary research
3. Generate / collect relevant primary or secondary data using an appropriate and justified method
4. Analyse your data using an appropriate and justified method of analysis
5. Recognise the ethical implications of your work
6. Critically evaluate the source of your data and the method you adopted

The module aims to provide you with an opportunity to integrate the knowledge acquired during the programme and apply this to a consultancy project for a real organisation. This consultancy project provides a vehicle for participants to develop and demonstrate key employability skills, to relate theory to practice, and to undertake a significant piece of assessed work commensurate with a capstone module.

You will work on behalf of an external organisation, which has identified a business problem or question, requiring a solution, working in small group of typically 4 individuals (you will select their own team members), participating in group and individual activities. The host organisation will provide a project briefing, and review; students will be supported by appropriate academic input and guidance from Newcastle Business School in the form of a mentor and via the Business Clinic.