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M.S. in Supply Chain Management

Master the Science of Supply Chains

Supply chain management is a critical component of virtually every industry. As companies expand their reach and seek resiliency in a fast-paced global environment, demand is high for individuals with the skills to help organizations better understand, manage and coordinate their supply chains.

Nebraska’s 30-credit-hour online program is offered in eight-week terms to give you the flexibility to pursue a degree while balancing your current responsibilities. Through a combination of required and elective courses, you will discover the concepts and innovative tools used in supply chain management and learn to apply analytics to design, analyze and improve supply chain systems. You’ll also have access to dedicated faculty and award-winning career resources.

Whether your background is in business or another discipline, you will graduate prepared to excel in a wide variety of fields including manufacturing, sourcing and operations consulting.

#3Career Services in the world

Financial Times (2022)

#25 best online master's in business programs

in the nation (U.S. News & World Report, 2024)

$95,750 median salary

Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM) Supply Chain Salary and Career Survey Report (2020)

May Start

Apply by April 1

August Start

Apply by July 1

January Start

Apply by November 1

Graduate Advantage Program Enables 15% Discount for Recent Huskers, Mavericks and Lopers Graduates

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Review Admission Requirements
Review Admissions Process

Admission Requirements

Prospective students will be evaluated on the basis of work experience (including military service), undergraduate degree and performance (recommended minimum 3.0 GPA), prior graduate study, and standardized test scores (GMAT or GRE). These do not guarantee admission; they ensure that the application will be reviewed for admission. Students who are denied admission will need to submit a separate application and application fee if they choose to reapply in future semesters.


Deadlines

You may apply for admission for the fall, spring or summer semesters. Students admitted before the semester starts may take classes in either or both of the eight-week terms (term A or term B) offered that semester. If you miss the semester deadline, you will be considered for admission in the following semester. Application deadlines are July 1 for the fall semester, November 1 for the spring semester, and April 1 for the summer semester.


Prerequisites

You are expected to have developed proficiency in using Microsoft Excel before beginning the program.


Application Requirements

  • Bachelor’s Degree, 3.0 GPA Recommended
    Official transcripts are required for admission. Transcript instructions for both domestic and international students can be found in the “Review Admission Process” tab above.

    Students with less than a 3.0 GPA, but who possess relevant professional experience, will still be considered for the program.

  • GMAT or GRE Score Optional
    GMAT or GRE score is not required. However, for students with less than a 3.0 GPA and minimal work experience, test scores may help improve the application.

    If you choose to take the GMAT or GMAT Focus Edition, please have your results forwarded to Nebraska (school code S40-HW-48). Once you take the exam, enter your unofficial scores into the graduate application. Please visit the official GMAT website for more information and to register for the test.

    If you choose to take the GRE, please have your results forwarded to Nebraska (school code 6877). Once you take the exam, enter your unofficial scores into the graduate application. Please visit the official GRE website for more information and to register for the test.

  • Professional Résumé or CV
    Your résumé should include relevant work experience, education, skills, professional and community involvement, and other professional credentials.

  • Three Reference Names and Contact Information
    All three references must be former or current supervisors or professors. No recommendation letters are needed. Nebraska will contact your references only if the committee deems it necessary.


TOEFL Exam (only for international students)

International students must include a TOEFL score. You will need a minimum score of 550 written, 213 computer-based, 80 iBT. Alternatively, you may submit IELTS scores. A minimum score of 6.5 IELTS is required.


Requirements During the Program

Once you are admitted, you will be required to maintain a cumulative college GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, along with grades of C or better in each of the courses.

Admissions Process

Apply

Apply online and submit the $50 application fee.

Apply Online Now


Upload Supporting Documents

All Supporting Documents including unofficial transcripts and test scores are uploaded directly via the graduate application.

You are required to submit an unofficial transcript from each post-secondary institution you have attended during the application review process.


Submit Official Transcripts

If you are admitted, you will be required to submit an official transcript sent directly from each institution you have attended to The Office of Graduate Studies. We recommend that you complete this task before your admitted term begins. A hold will be placed on your account if they do not receive your official transcripts by October 1 for the fall term, February 1 for the spring term and July 1 for the summer term. Students will have until that day to submit official transcripts or your admission will be rescinded.

Transcripts can be sent electronically to graduate@unl.edu or by mail to

University of Nebraska–Lincoln
Graduate Admissions
1100 Seaton Hall
Lincoln, NE 68588-0619

International Student Transcript Submission

If you are an international student, please refer to the Nebraska Office of Graduate Studies for transcript and document information.

International Transcript Information

Additional information on Application Requirements can be found at Graduate Studies website.

Joshua Johnson

I chose Nebraska because it's one of the best programs in the nation. I started out in the supply chain management graduate certificate and used it as a stepping stone into the M.S. in supply chain management program. I took my new knowledge to change processes and make them more efficient. For example, we re-organized our parachute shop and saved valuable hours by cutting down unnecessary steps.

Joshua Johnston, Flight Chief, U.S. Air Force

Get More Information

Sign up and we’ll send you what you need to know about the M.S. in Supply Chain Management.

If you have immediate questions, contact our Business Graduate Programs Office at businessgrad2@unl.edu or 402-472-2338.

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We respect your privacy and will never sell, share, lease or give your information to a third party.

Info Sessions

Join us to learn more about the Nebraska Business graduate program in Supply Chain Management. There is no cost for the webinar. Please register to receive the Zoom information and your online passcode.

May 16 | 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (central) Register Now

Talent Investment Program

We offer three-year flexible partnership agreements for companies and organizations to offer a 15% tuition reduction for Nebraska's online business master's degrees and graduate certificate programs to their employees and members. There is no minimum or maximum number of students required to take advantage of the program.

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Fair Tuition

$675 per credit hour

Nebraska's online master's programs are one of the best values for the money because of our combination of fair program cost and strong preparation for career advancement.

The flat $675 per credit hour rate applies to all students, regardless of where you live. Compared to similar programs, our students pay over $18,000 less over the course of the program.

*Based on 2023-24 Tuition Rates

Build Your Skills through Relevant and Interactive Courses

The curriculum combines a core of business fundamentals with specialized supply chain management courses. This provides you with a solid introduction to business concepts and quantitative tools, as well as the foundations of supply chain management. Three electives enable you to tailor the program to suit your needs and interests.

You will learn logistics, production planning and control, sourcing and procurement, lean management and project management. You will also gain experience with supply chain software and learn to apply statistical and analytical methods such as forecasting, data mining, optimization and simulation.

18

Supply Chain Fundamentals and Elective Credit Hours

+

12

Business Fundamentals Credit Hours

=

30

Credit Hours to Your M.S. in Supply Chain Management

100% Online

8-Week Courses

Complete Five Business and Supply Chain Fundamentals Courses

GRBA 815: Supply Chain Management Strategies

This course enables you to better develop and sustain a company’s competitive advantage through effective supply chain management. You will develop an understanding of internal and external operations that support corporate level strategies and simultaneously coordinate with other functional areas. Concepts and tools used in operations and supply chain management are discussed and then implemented using a supply chain simulation to develop further understanding of the implications of decisions and applications.

GRBA 851: Business Analytics

In this course, you’ll gain a broad understanding and knowledge of important business analytic topics and how they can be used to support decision-making in all business areas, as well as government, education and agriculture. The course emphasizes the methods and procedures that are used to describe data, make predictions and enable decision-making. You will learn how data exploration results in a sequence of descriptive, predictive and prescriptive processes that result in new information, based on which better and more informed decisions can be made.

SCMA 832: Supply Chain Planning and Control Systems

Planning and Control Systems provide the framework and infrastructure necessary to guide decision makers. Basic and advanced planning and control tools are discussed and applied. These tools are then implemented through simulations to expand the understanding between the analytical methods and the practical application.

SCMA 844: Supply Chain Logistics

This course focuses on the physical distribution activities in the marketing mix from the viewpoints of both providers and users of components of logistics systems. The course blends theoretical and practical applications used for planning the movement and storage of goods through the supply chain. Particular emphasis is placed on risks and opportunities of current and changing events that affect decision-making and the evolution of distribution systems.

SCMA 839: Global Supply Chain Management

This course focuses on global aspects of supply chain management with primary emphasis on sourcing and distribution strategies. Specific issues include make versus buy decisions, supplier evaluation and selection, total cost of ownership, contracts and legal terms, negotiation, and purchasing ethics with emphasis on how these topics impact organizational performance. A significant portion of this course is a project/application that integrates supply chain topics.

M.S. in Supply Chain Management degree students must take this course near the end of their program.

* SCMA 839 serves as the capstone course for the program and must be completed near the end of the program of study.

Select Two Business Fundamentals Courses

GRBA 809: Financial Accounting

This course provides a broad understanding of financial accounting for managers who will be “customers” of financial information. The course focuses on providing an understanding of accounting from a user’s perspective and gaining insight into how economic events such as financing transactions, company investments and operating activities are recorded in financial statements.

GRBA 811: Managerial Finance

In this course, you’ll gain operational knowledge of corporate finance by combining theory and applications. It will introduce the concepts of risk, return and time-value-of money as applied to valuation of securities and capital budgeting. It will further develop skills in the areas of financial analysis and planning.

The goal is to become familiar with fundamental managerial decisions such as investing and financing.

GRBA 812: Managerial Economics

The subject of this course is competition among businesses operating in typical product markets. The course has three objectives: 1) to solidify understanding of fundamental tools of economic analysis so that these tools can be used, 2) to explore a range of issues where economic analysis can provide useful insight, and 3) to begin to build skill in competitive analysis, which entails formation of marketing, production, channel, investment and pricing strategies based on the way competitive forces appear to work themselves out in the market. It provides the foundation for many future classes in business and finance, and many theoretical and practical learning opportunities that you may use in your career.

GRBA 813: Managerial Marketing

In this course, you’ll explore the theory and practice of marketing management and will integrate the knowledge from various marketing sub-fields, including consumer behavior, marketing research and channels of distribution. The course will follow a four-stage learning approach including: 1) comprehensively reviewing and analyzing all aspects of marketing management, 2) learning tools for marketing problem analysis, 3) understanding how to apply core marketing concepts, theories and frameworks and 4) developing an original marketing plan for a new product launch.

Choose Three Electives

See a List of Electives
Supply Chain Management Focused Electives:

SCMA 831: Advanced Enterprise Systems
Enterprise systems integrate information and decision tools across the functional areas of an organization. These systems play a significant role in decision-making in operations and supply chain management and provide the mechanism for integrating these decisions, as well as sharing data and information with other decision makers.

SCMA 834: Advanced Topics in Lean Supply Chain Management
You will learn how well-known companies (like Toyota) have implemented continuous improvement approaches, such as Lean and Six Sigma, within their organizations. You will also apply what you learn practically and work to answer questions such as: How can I make improvement and agility part of everyday work? How do we develop and utilize the capabilities of my team to achieve new levels of performance? How can we build the confidence in my organization to tackle difficult situations and exceed customer expectations? This class provides new tools for your “toolbox” and explores techniques to maximize your organization’s results.

SCMA 836: Project Management and Implementation
Project management involves managing people and resources to accomplish a new activity. This course provides an introduction to techniques that are used for planning and managing projects, from project initiation through implementation. You will learn a variety of tools and techniques that can be used for budgeting, planning and scheduling, risk management and project implementation.

SCMA 847: Information Technologies for Operations and Innovation
In today’s turbulent and uncertain marketplace, organizations compete based on their dynamic capabilities of agility, flexibility, resilience and adaptability. Business leaders must be knowledgeable and capable of leveraging the advanced information and communication technology (ICT) for innovation to support smart operations. In this course, you will learn foundational components along with the most advanced new ICTs and how they are currently being used to operate, innovate and grow businesses. You will study new disruptive ICTs (Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, (X)R, IoT, Digital Manufacturing, Cloud Computing, Edge Computing, Software-defined Infrastructure, Drones, etc.) to explore their potential and actual roles in innovation and smart operation through digital transformation.


Business Analytics Focused Electives:

** A maximum of two courses can be taken from the business analytics focused electives.

SCMA 837: Risk and Simulation Modeling
Simulation is the process of building a computer model of a system or a decision-making problem and experimenting with the model to obtain insight into the system’s behavior or to assist in solving the decision-making problem. This course addresses the simulation of business systems that are subject to uncertainty and risk. Upon completion of the course, you will be able to carry out the entire process of designing a simulation model, implementing it in appropriate software, executing the simulation, collecting and analyzing output data and using the results of the analysis to evaluate alternative decision scenarios.

SCMA 851: Predictive Analytics
There are three main categories of analytic tools: descriptive, predictive and prescriptive. Predictive analytics extends statistical and/or artificial intelligence methods to provide forecasting capability. In today’s environment, predictive analytics involves applying knowledge management to analyze large quantities of data. In this course, you will be exposed to the analytic methods and statistical tools that are commonly used for predictive analytics in business, enabling the organizations to use these methods and software to solve business problems. The risks associated with the handling of big data are also discussed.

SCMA 853: Data Mining and Descriptive Analytics
Data mining applies quantitative analysis to support humans in identifying actionable information from large quantities of data. Actionable information is information that enables a business to make better decisions and improve their overall profits. This course focuses on how descriptive data mining has been successfully applied in business. Descriptive analytics involves initial examination of data, seeking to discover patterns and other knowledge. The course describes the tools commonly used in descriptive data mining and also address ethical and privacy issues related to the use of information obtained through data mining.

SCMA 855: Prescriptive Analytics
There are three main categories of analytic tools: descriptive, predictive and prescriptive. Prescriptive analytics focuses on the use of data from the other business analytics domains, such as descriptive and predictive analytics, to achieve strategic and operational objectives. This course focuses on how optimization techniques can be used to make decisions in a variety of business applications. The techniques covered include linear, integer and network models, sensitivity analysis, stochastic optimization, sequential decision making and two-objective optimization. The application of these techniques for solving real-size problems in businesses is emphasized. Several case studies related to topics such as financial planning, logistics, production planning and inventory management are discussed.

Wesley Boyce

Recent events like the COVID-19 pandemic, labor unrest at railroads, and natural disasters demonstrate how problems in the supply chain impact our daily lives. Consumers and industry both benefit from more robust supply chains. Our M.S. in Supply Chain Management degree will help you manage them with a data-driven approach.

Wesley Boyce, Program Director and Assistant Professor of Practice in Supply Chain Management and Analytics

Built with Leading-Edge Learning Technology

The online program for the M.S. in Supply Chain Management is mobile-optimized and uses the Canvas learning management system, which is designed to be easy and efficient.

Guided Video Walkthroughs

Forget the standard PowerPoint presentation. Professors will frequently serve as on-camera guides to break down the lesson.

A Classroom in Your Pocket

Our mobile app will send you notifications for course updates and give you the option to message faculty or jump into coursework no matter where you are.

Connect with Your Professors

The online program allows you to learn from anywhere in the world, but it doesn’t mean your professors will be distant. You can make the same connection with your instructors as students on campus.

Consistent Class Structure

Tech stress won’t slow you down as you easily jump from one class to the next, finding a consistent structure that helps you focus on what’s important.

Technology Requirements

Technology Requirements

Minimum technology requirements include a webcam and microphone, as well as an operating system that is compliant with the online learning platform, Canvas.

Screen Size

Canvas is best viewed at a minimum resolution of 800x600. If you want to view Canvas on a device with a smaller screen, we recommend using the Canvas mobile app.

Operating Systems

• Windows 7 and newer (users on Windows 10 need to download the 10 Anniversary Update to submit Canvas assignments)
• Mac OSX 10.6 and newer
• Linux - chromeOS

Mobile Operating System Native App Support

• iOS 7 and newer (versions vary by device)
• Android 4.2 and newer

Computer Speed and Processor

• Use computer less than 5 years old if possible
• 1GB of RAM
• 2GHz processor

Internet Speed

Along with compatibility and web standards, Canvas has been carefully crafted to accommodate low bandwidth environments.

Minimum of 512kbps

Screen Readers

• Macintosh: VoiceOver (latest version for Safari)
• PC: JAWS (latest version for Internet Explorer)
• PC: NVDA (latest version for Firefox)
• There is no screen reader support for Canvas in Chrome

Additional Requirements

Some courses may require additional technological components. Please review the syllabus and contact the instructor with specific questions about technology required for a given course.

Focused on Your Advancement

Nebraska pairs easy-to-use and engaging course technology with world-class Big Ten faculty to give you a dynamic, yet accessible learning experience. With a comprehensive combination of courses, our program will help you develop quantitative skills that are transferable across industries and necessary to solve the complex questions of today.

Designed for Balance

Each course follows an 8-week schedule, which means you can continue advancing your career while excelling in your current position. This format allows you to take multiple classes per semester, concentrate on one concept at a time, and keep your family commitments.

Designed by Experts

Classes are designed by faculty who are experts in advancing research and leading conversations on the future of business. Engage with Big Ten faculty as you gain valuable skills used by supply chain professionals.

Learn from Distinguished Big Ten Faculty

Nebraska faculty bring real-world expertise and their research findings into the classroom. Our students benefit from working with professors who are thought leaders connecting the classroom to the real world.

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Demet Batur

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Wesley Boyce

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Heng Chen

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Clyde Davis

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Shivam Gupta

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Shawntell Kroese

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Yingchao Lan

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Majid Nabavi

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David L. Olson

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Jennifer K. Ryan

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Erkut Sönmez

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Scott R. Swenseth

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Silvana Trimi

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Liang Xu

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Peter Zhu

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Personalized Career Coaching

Resources such as an expert career coach, a strong culture of networking and our online resume review will help launch you ahead in your career.

Graduate students and alumni can schedule an in-person or online appointment with a career coach, who will help assess where you are in your career and what experiences you might need to move forward. Your coach will review relevant job opportunities, help you market yourself effectively and connect you to alumni working in your desired field.

Additionally, you’ll have access to Beyond B-School, a career management resource that covers job search topics such as résumés, interviews and cover letters. Beyond B-School helps you think about marketing yourself as an experienced professional and how to highlight the value of your degree.

Connect with a Career Coach

CONTACT US

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Phone
402-472-2338

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Email
businessgrad2@unl.edu

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Schedule an Appointment

Get More Information

Sign up and we’ll send you what you need to know about the M.S. in Supply Chain Management.

If you have immediate questions, contact our Business Graduate Programs Office at businessgrad2@unl.edu or 402-472-2338.

* = required
We respect your privacy and will never sell, share, lease or give your information to a third party.