Course Description

Economic Influences on Logistics helps learners relate economic forces to costing, pricing and operating logistics operations within a business enterprise. Learners will gain a deeper understanding of macroeconomic trends, government intervention, and how to capitalize on microeconomic levers. And they’ll know how to use that knowledge to make seemingly uncontrollable influences on supply chain profitability much more predictable—and survivable.

Economic Influences on Logistics is recommended for buyers or suppliers of transportation services or anyone involved in pricing decisions, planning of supply, demand or supply-chain capacity management.

Prerequisites: Transportation Systems and Logistics Processes

Recommended: Introductory Economics or equivalent

Module topics include:

• Logistics and Technology
• Trade and Transportation
• Transportation Costs & and Efficiencies
• Supply and Demand of Transportation
• Transportation Costing and Pricing - Road & Rail
• Transportation Costing and Pricing - Ocean & Air
• Location and Transportation
• Government Policy's Influence on the Transportation Industry
• Transportation and Environmental Economics
  
  

Course grads will be able to:

• Adapt operations to the unique influences of Canadian infrastructure, transportation, trade agreements and logistics technology, and understand how they affect Canada’s ability to compete globally
   
• Identifying all costs (direct, indirect, internal and external)
   
• Adjust logistics strategies to changes in the health of the Canadian economy and economic cycles and governmental regulation
   
• Capitalize on economic concepts such as supply and demand, diminishing returns and economies of scale
   
• Decide between modes of transportation based on economic characteristics and internal and external factors
   
• Develop pricing strategies considering inputs such as marginal and average costing, front haul / back haul pricing, price discrimination, and congestion cost pricing
   
• Adjust to early signs of changes in supply and demand across modes and adjust modes to avoid cost increases and delays
  
  

Over 83% of Transportation Economics grads recommend the course to their colleagues.

 

 

Course Work and Final Exam:

Course work for Economic Influences on Logistics includes:

• 9 Group Discussion Assignments (20%)
• 3 Business Case Study Assignments (30%)
• An Online Final Exam (50%)

  

Group Discussion Assignments – 20% of course mark

Learners will participate in online group discussions with a pre-assigned group of classmates. Each week, you will be presented with discussion questions. These online discussions engage students in reflection, dialogue and debate, challenge you to apply the course material in real world business scenarios.

To receive full participation credit you must complete the following 2 steps before the weekly due date:

1. Provide a high quality response to the posted question(s). Your responses must be substantive in nature by providing full explanations, details and citations where appropriate. While there is no set requirement for length of response, one word responses will not meet the criteria for quality participation.
   
2. Read and respond to at least one of your colleagues responses. Build on responses by asking related questions, relating your experiences and making an oppositional statement supported by personal experience or related research.

Business Case Study Assignments – 30% of course mark

Students will receive a business case and throughout the course submit three critical responses from the viewpoint of working for a subject company. This organization and the details of the case are fictitious but have been designed to mimic industry and supplement the learnings by demonstrating the student's ability to think critically about situations and apply the course learnings.

Each of the three assignments is worth 10% of the course mark, and comes with specific instructions. In general, students will be required to submit a response, most often in the form of a recommendation, supported by the course learnings.

Final Exam – 50% of course mark

The final exam for Economic Influences on Logistics is held online, is 2.5 hours long, and is open-book. The exam consists of 5 questions which require essay style answers.

The final exam period runs over the course of several days at the end of the semester. You can choose any (continuous) 2.5 hour window of time to begin & complete your exam during the exam period. Once exam period dates have been set for each semester, they will become available on the Key Dates page. The exam requires access to a computer with a reliable internet connection. In order to reduce the chances of technical issues, learners should use the Firefox web browser.

Learning Assessment and Grades

Grades are reported as Honours, Pass, or Fail. To obtain a Pass, learners must earn a minimum grade of 50%. To achieve Honours, learners must earn a total grade of 80% or higher.  
The final grade is assessed based on both term work and the final examination, as follows:

• 9 Group Discussion Assignments (20%)
• 3 Business Case Study Assignments (30%)
• An Online Final Exam (50%)

Approximately one month after the final exam, you will receive your course results from CITT.

Language Options

Although the learning materials and course site are in English, a francophone facilitator is available and learners have the option of completing the assignments and answering exam questions in French if they desire.