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From designing a solution to getting it to the people who need it.
Over the years I have travelled to the United States many times, and I usually make time to visit universities. I like to see how they run and what they teach. One thing kept catching my eye. Supply chain was not a side subject there. Many universities had dedicated centres for it, linking research, industry and teaching.
Those visits strengthened something I have believed for a long time. Every engineering student should leave college with a working knowledge of supply chain management.
An engineer can design an excellent product, write a powerful algorithm or plan an ambitious bridge. That is half the job. The other half starts with different questions. Can we get the materials? Can suppliers meet the specification? Can we make a thousand, or a million? Will they reach the customer on time? Who repairs them five years from now?
Those questions belong inside engineering education. A design only becomes useful when someone can deliver it.
What some universities are already doing
MIT's Center for Transportation & Logistics brings supply chain research, teaching and industry work under one roof. Georgia Tech runs its Supply Chain & Logistics Institute from its School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. These two centres don't prove that every American engineering programme teaches supply chain. They do show that leading engineering schools take it seriously enough to invest in it.
My own view goes further. I would like a basic supply chain course in every branch of engineering, followed by applications that suit each discipline.
What CES taught me about prototypes
I have also been going to CES in Las Vegas for some years. In the startup halls you meet young founders who are rightly proud of what they have built. And at almost every stand I find myself asking: how does this become something a customer can buy, use and get repaired?
CES gives startups their own space, Eureka Park, to launch products and meet investors and partners.What you see there is a real engineering achievement. It is also the start of a much harder problem.
Take a made-up example. A startup shows a smart soil sensor for farmers. The prototype works and buyers are interested. Then an order for 10,000 units arrives. Now the team has to buy components in volume, qualify a manufacturer, pay for tooling, set up testing, plan stock and arrange delivery. They also need spare parts and support.
A chip that was easy to buy for ten prototypes may take months to arrive at volume. A late design change may mean new tooling and more testing. Orders may come faster than the factory can build. Or the team may over-order stock and run out of cash.
Each of these is a supply chain decision with engineering consequences. A student who understands this will think about manufacturability, parts availability and after-sales support while the product is still being designed.
CES seems to see this too. For CES 2026 it added a Manufacturing Track and an Advanced Manufacturing Showcase, focused on scaling production and strengthening supply chains. There was also a session called "Securing the Supply Chain in a Shifting World".
Getting a product to market depends on supply chain capability. Engineers should think about it from day one.
Engineers make supply chain decisions earlier than they think
Supply chain management covers demand, sourcing, buying, production, stock, distribution and service, plus the information and money that move with the goods. It also covers returns, repair, recycling and disposal. Logistics is one important part. The bigger questions are what to make, where to buy it, how much capacity to build and what to do when things change.
Most engineers don't realise how early they shape these answers. A material specification decides which suppliers can bid. One component choice can tie you to a single manufacturer. A tight tolerance affects yield and inspection. A product that is hard to repair raises spare-parts costs and waste.
By the time a drawing reaches purchasing, much of the supply chain is already decided.
AI runs on hardware, and hardware has a supply chain
Computer science students often see their work as pure software. It isn't. Every AI application needs computing power, which comes from processors, memory, servers, network equipment, data centres, cooling and electricity. A team renting cloud capacity still depends on all of it.
NIST describes the semiconductor supply chain as a connected network running through design, fabrication, assembly, testing, packaging and distribution.
The International Energy Agency's 2025 Energy and AI report projects that data-centre electricity use could more than double to around 945 TWh by 2030 in its base case. That covers all data centres, though AI is the biggest driver of growth. The IEA also flags bottlenecks in grid connections, transformers and cables.
Picture an AI company that has promised a new service in six months. The software is ready on time, but the computing capacity isn't available, or costs far more than planned. Now it must rethink the launch date, the model's efficiency, its cloud deal or its promises to customers.
The company is hypothetical. The dependencies are real. Trade restrictions, geopolitical tension and a handful of dominant suppliers all affect who gets hardware, and when. Students who understand this make better calls on architecture, capacity and deployment.
Mechanical and electronics: a small part can stop a big machine
A car or machine is only as available as its least available part, and a part's importance has little to do with its price.
Toyota learned this in 2021. In August it announced deep cuts to September production, and in September it extended them into October. It blamed COVID-19 outbreaks at parts suppliers in Southeast Asia and the tight supply of semiconductors. One of the world's best-run manufacturers was held back by problems far upstream.
Here is a classroom case. One design uses a specialised bearing from a single approved supplier. Another uses a standard bearing that several qualified suppliers make. Choosing means weighing performance, safety and reliability, and also lead time, availability and lifetime cost. The specialised bearing may still be right. The engineer just needs to know what comes with it.
Electronics students face the same with chips: obsolescence, counterfeits, approved substitutes and supplier qualification. Swapping a chip can mean redesign, firmware changes, new tests and recertification. That is an engineering decision as much as a purchasing one.
Civil: the construction schedule rides on the procurement schedule
Drawings don't bring steel, cement, lifts, panels or skilled subcontractors to a site.
Think of a new hospital. The building is up, but the electrical switchgear hasn't arrived. Commissioning stalls and the opening slips.
A civil engineer has to tie design approval, ordering, manufacture, transport, installation and commissioning into one plan. Long-lead items must be spotted early, and deliveries must follow the order of work. Order too early and you tie up cash and storage. Order too late and crews stand idle. Supply chain methods help find the balance.
Telecom and software: dependencies you can't see
A telecom rollout needs equipment, fibre, power, ready sites, installation crews and spares, all lined up with the plan.
Software has a supply chain too: outside libraries, packages, tools and cloud services. Teams need to know where these come from, who maintains them and what happens if one becomes vulnerable or disappears. NIST's guidance on cybersecurity supply chain risk (SP 800-161 Rev. 1) covers risks like malicious code, counterfeit products and weak development or manufacturing practices.
For a software engineer this means everyday questions. What does my code depend on? How do I manage updates? Can I trust this supplier? What if a service goes down?
Farming, medicines, aviation and services
Every industry has a supply chain. Only the problems differ.
On a farm, crops come in all at once and spoil within days, and power is often unreliable. Engineers designing harvesters or cold stores must plan for this.
In medicines, making the drug is only half the job. Ingredients must be pure, the process approved and every batch traceable. The US FDA’s 2019 report on drug shortages found that some drugs earn too little for companies to make, good quality goes unrewarded, and supply recovers slowly once it breaks.
In aviation, a plane cannot fly without the right spare part. A part without certification is useless.
Even services need supplies. A hospital stops without medicines and working IT. An app stops when its hosting fails.
Look at the whole system, not one corner of it
Supply chain thinking makes engineers look beyond their task.
A factory can produce more than ever and fill its warehouse with goods nobody ordered. A buyer can get a big discount by ordering three years of stock at once. A smart design can use a part customers can’t find when it breaks. Each looks good alone. Together, they cost the company money.
I want students to judge cost, quality, delivery, capacity, risk and sustainability side by side. Being ready for trouble might mean a backup supplier, extra stock of critical parts, knowing where suppliers get their materials, or a design that accepts approved alternatives.
One warning: two suppliers won’t help if both buy from the same factory.
A classroom exercise: when the cheaper part costs more
A student team must choose a component for 1,000 units. The numbers are made up for teaching.
Supplier A charges $20 a unit, so $20,000. Add $2,000 for freight, $1,500 for expected quality problems and rework, and a $4,000 allowance for disruption risk. Total: $27,500.
Supplier B charges $23 a unit, so $23,000. Freight is $1,000, quality and rework $500, and the disruption allowance $500. Total: $25,000.
Supplier A quotes less. Supplier B costs $2,500 less overall, under these assumptions.
The disruption allowance is the number students should argue over. It must rest on a real look at likelihood and impact, and they should change it to see when the answer flips. Both suppliers must first meet safety, compliance and quality requirements. Cost only decides between acceptable options. The lesson: don't stop at the quotation.
What I would teach
I would start with a common foundation for all branches:
- Systems thinking. Trace the path from a customer's order to delivery, maintenance and end of life.
- Sourcing and suppliers. Judge suppliers on quality, capacity, lead time and total cost.
- Planning and inventory. Understand uncertain demand, bottlenecks, buffer stock and working capital.
- Risk and resilience. Find critical dependencies and plan sensible responses.
- Digital tools. Use data, optimisation, ERP and AI, knowing their assumptions.
- Sustainability. Link materials to energy use, repairability, reuse and recovery.
Then each discipline makes it its own through projects. An AI team maps what a service depends on. An electronics team checks a board for obsolescence risk. A civil team builds a procurement schedule tied to the construction programme. A mechanical team compares designs on performance, manufacturability and lifetime support.
I would also ask every final-year project for a short supply chain feasibility note. What inputs do we need? Who can supply them? What limits scale? What happens if a critical supplier fails?
Why this matters for students
An engineer who understands supply chains can speak the language of procurement, production, finance, operations and customers. It also opens careers in planning, supplier development, operations analytics and technical leadership.
Not every engineer must become a specialist. No engineer can afford to ignore it.
A prototype proves an idea can work. Delivery proves it matters. Our classrooms teach the first and mostly skip the second.
So every graduate should leave with two answers. How does my solution work? And what will it take to put it in people’s hands?
