A fifteen-hour flight to Phoenix (Arizona, USA), a transfer at O’Hare airport in Chicago, and a stay at one of the largest American universities make one realize the vast gap that separates Poland, Polish logistics, and Polish logistical problems from the issues encountered in this area.
Polish domestic logistics operates in an area of approximately 313,000 square kilometers and pales in comparison to the nearly 30 times larger area of the USA. Internal air transport, which is still something new and very expensive in Poland, is the only guarantor of efficient movement of people and goods in the USA. The words of a LOT Polish Airlines flight attendant: “welcome aboard this flight operated in cooperation with our Star Alliance partners” show the huge disparities between “partners” when we compare the less than 3.5 million passengers served in 2002 by LOT, our 51 aircraft, and the largest Polish airport, Okęcie, with its few gates, to one of the largest American airports – O’Hare in Chicago. In just one day, this airport handles an average of 185,000 passengers (in 2002 there were over 66.5 million, which is 19 times more than in all of Poland), has 178 gates where passenger boarding can be conducted simultaneously, and generates 450,000 jobs and 38 billion dollars in trade turnover annually.
These figures confirm the importance of modern logistics for the efficient functioning of complex organizations and its enormous impact on economic results achieved on a national scale. It is worth looking at the methods and scope of training personnel for the needs of these complex logistical processes and considering the possibility of their adaptation in Polish conditions and at Polish universities. In this article, I present the most important issues regarding the scope of logistics education at the university and postgraduate level at universities grouped under Apollo Group Inc. The presented didactic issues enable students of American universities to obtain a Certificate in Operations and Supply Chain Management.
The materials used in the article come from the University of Phoenix, located in the heart of Arizona, in the southwestern United States (photo 1). The issues of the scope of logistics education and the requirements placed on American undergraduate and postgraduate students were crystallized during my discussions with Brian G. Lindquist, Dean of the School of Business and Management at the University of Phoenix, and Hal D. Morgan, Associate Dean of this school, responsible for postgraduate education.
The University of Phoenix belongs to the private consortium Apollo Group Inc, which educates over 96,000 students in more than half of the US states (136 campuses). In 2003, the group’s total revenue exceeded 1.33 billion USD, which is an average of over 9.5 million USD per campus. Almost all university lecturers are practitioners of economic life; they run their own companies or work in large industrial or service corporations. Thanks to them, students, very often thirty- and forty-something-year-olds, gain knowledge and practical skills suitable for direct use in their workplaces.
The Operations & Supply Chain Management course is a 6-subject postgraduate education program based on practical examples. Its students are introduced to the latest issues of customer service and production. They become familiar with topics such as: strategic supply chain management, production management, lean manufacturing, global sourcing and procurement techniques, and e-commerce. Students examine, at both national and international levels, the relationships between supplier and recipient, and the need for their cooperation in planning and forecasting needs from the supply level to finished products.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 4/2004.