Certified in Planning and Inventory Management (CPIM) Preparation

Program facts

Study fee

Free

subjects

9

lessons

39

Estimated time

34 hours

Content last reviewed

23 October 2026

Access period

30 days

Study language

Arabic and English

About the program

Thirty-nine lessons cover nine domains from strategy and demand through supply, inventory, scheduling, distribution and quality, each with a worked case, exercise and questions.

Practical relevance

Cases progress from demand balance to supplier checks and scarcity allocation; workplace transfer requires checking local data.

Why this program

The material turns planning terminology into quantity and timing decisions with explicit assumptions and limits.

Career relevance

Useful to planners, purchasers, manufacturing and distribution staff and CPIM candidates, without career or exam guarantees.

What you will learn

• Align strategy and customer promise.
• Balance S&OP.
• Separate demand and forecast.
• Test MPS, MRP and capacity.
• Time suppliers and exceptions.
• Calculate availability and replenishment.
• Schedule execution and monitor WIP.
• Plan distribution and measure OTIF.
• Examine quality, improvement and technology.

Who it is for

• The program serves CPIM candidates seeking applied review of the current nine-domain outline and planners or staff in inventory, procurement, manufacturing and distribution who examine quantity, timing, capacity and service decisions. It also suits learners who prefer Arabic with equivalent English coverage and want to test case assumptions, calculations and limits before transferring the reasoning to their own work.

Curriculum

1. Subject 1 Open for free

   Aligning the supply chain with business strategy

   Supply-chain alignment begins with the customer's actual choice: speed, specification flexibility or cost, alongside the quality needed merely to qualify. Choose the forecast-to-order boundary against feasible lead time and inventory exposure, then test process and layout against volume and variety. Faster delivery cannot be achieved by moving defects to a supplier or relying on nominal capacity. In make-or-buy, compare avoidable cost, qualification, drawing rights and bottleneck opportunity cost: making for 90,000 versus first-year buying for 94,800 differs from the 12,500-unit steady-state break-even.

   6 lessons · 5.5 hours

   1. Customer promise and the forecast–order boundary 44 min
   2. Choosing process and layout from volume and variety 44 min
   3. Promise measures and disruption risk 44 min
   4. Make-or-buy and process-technology choice 40 min
   5. Supply-chain resilience and sustainability 42 min
   6. Competitive and value-chain evidence for strategic priority 42 min
2. Subject 2

   Sales and operations planning

   Sales and operations planning balances aggregate demand, output and inventory across matched periods. Start with opening stock, add production and subtract demand, checking capacity, service and ending floor; a balanced annual total can hide a critical monthly shortage. Level production stabilizes capacity but can accumulate stock, chase production reduces stock while changing labor or hours, and hybrid plans blend them. Compare alternatives over the same horizon with explicit cost and service, rather than claiming one always wins. If supplier or plant capacity cannot meet the plan, do not hide the gap by editing demand or entering an unconfirmed receipt.

   3 lessons · 3 hours

   1. Balancing family demand, output and inventory 44 min
   2. Comparing level output and demand chasing 44 min
   3. Reconciling sales, supply and financial plans 44 min
3. Subject 3

   Demand planning and management

   Demand planning separates independent demand, customer orders and forecast consumed by orders; adding the same order to forecast without consumption double counts need. Build a baseline from comparable time-series periods and compare simple methods on held-out dates rather than fitted history. Mean absolute error measures magnitude while bias retains direction; opposite signed errors do not erase service effects. Promotion or product revision enters the plan with an owner, effectivity date and incremental demand that is not repeated as a firm order.

   5 lessons · 4.5 hours

   1. Demand sources and order consumption of forecasts 44 min
   2. Selecting and testing forecasts on matched periods 44 min
   3. Measuring forecast error, bias and demand amplification 44 min
   4. Customer segments, promotions and product revisions 44 min
   5. Choosing qualitative and quantitative forecasts with model limits 44 min
4. Subject 4

   Planning and managing internal supply

   Internal supply converts demand into a master production schedule, then materials and capacity. Test the MPS against rough-cut capacity and customer promises; explode a revision-specific BOM by quantity and lead time, keeping gross demand separate from net after usable stock and confirmed receipts. A capacity exception needs documented resequencing, overtime or a revised promise, not a silent customer-date change. In final assembly, available-to-promise derives from production and uncommitted components, not quarantined physical stock. Engineering change needs an effectivity date and distinct old/new BOMs: 20 old pieces with book value 80 are potential exposure, not a realized write-off, while MOQ forces 50 new pieces for net need 40 and leaves ten.

   5 lessons · 4.5 hours

   1. Master production scheduling and rough-cut capacity 44 min
   2. Bill-of-material explosion and time-phased net requirements 44 min
   3. Changing a schedule after a capacity outage inside the time fence 44 min
   4. Final assembly scheduling and a feasible customer promise 44 min
   5. Engineering-change effectivity and end-of-life stock 44 min
5. Subject 5

   Planning and managing external supply

   External supply planning starts from the production need date and offsets supplier build, transit and inspection. Need 150 with 40 released gives net 110; a 30-unit pack rule forces buying 120 and leaves ten. With normal total lead 14 days and long lead 17, latest release for day-30 need moves from day 16 to day 13; supplier acceptance does not guarantee post-inspection availability. Compare offers on landed cost, not quote alone: two may tie at 6,500 per lot despite differing freight and price, leaving conditional reliability and delay exposure important.

   4 lessons · 3.5 hours

   1. Supplier scheduling with variable lead time 42 min
   2. Supplier choice by landed cost and reliability 42 min
   3. Supplier delay and incoming-quality exceptions 40 min
   4. Redundant sourcing and supply continuity 42 min
6. Subject 6

   Inventory planning and management

   Sound inventory decisions begin with ownership, location, quality and reservations: a count of 198 including 30 customer-owned, 12 held and 95 reservations on released stock leaves 61 available for a new order, not the shelf or ERP headline. Under continuous review, ROP combines expected lead-time demand with risk-based safety; daily mean 30, fixed lead four, independent daily deviation eight and z=1.5 produce point 144, so position 140 triggers an order. Lot size is separate: theoretical EOQ is about 632 at D=10,000, S=40 and H=2, while 250-unit packs and MOQ 500 make 750 the cheapest tested feasible lot.

   5 lessons · 4.5 hours

   1. Inventory segmentation and availability reconciliation 40 min
   2. Reorder point and safety stock 40 min
   3. Lot size, turns and carrying cost 40 min
   4. Traceability, cycle counts and variance control 42 min
   5. Returns disposition and responsible recovery 40 min
7. Subject 7

   Detailed scheduling and execution

   Detailed schedules test actual machine, material and labor capacity, not a theoretical due date. Compare EDD and SPT against the chosen measure: in one three-job case EDD gives two total tardy hours versus SPT's four, yet makes two jobs late rather than one, so a different service objective can change the choice. Do not release all 240 when only 180 components are released and 60 held; a traceable partial 180 can run, with the rest finishing day four only if quality releases material and capacity remains.

   4 lessons · 3.5 hours

   1. Finite-capacity job sequencing 42 min
   2. Production-order release and readiness 40 min
   3. Throughput, work in process and flow time 40 min
   4. Released-work control across material, maintenance and labor 40 min
8. Subject 8

   Distribution planning and management

   DRP turns branch needs into dated dispatches after transit and release, rounding packs per branch. Net needs of 80 and 70 can require 80+80 in 20-unit packs, or 160; with only 150 upstream, show a ten-unit gap before promising. For scarce stock, apply contract priority, partial acceptance and stoppage effect: 100 available with A's priority 60, C's 40 next and B's 50 gives A60/C40/B0, with unit fill 100/150. Held material or tomorrow's receipt does not count in today's service. Measure customer arrival, not warehouse departure: an order with 50 of 60 by due time fails full-order OTIF while contributing 50 on-time units.

   3 lessons · 2.5 hours

   1. Distribution replenishment planning 40 min
   2. Allocating scarce stock against service commitments 40 min
   3. Order-to-delivery trace and service measurement 40 min
9. Subject 9

   Quality, improvement and technology

   Quality compares customer specification with control limits describing process behavior: a 102.5 measurement against specification upper 102 and control upper 103 is nonconforming despite remaining within process limits. Sampling cannot prove every item sound, so contain suspect lots and remove causes in the process. Weld failures falling from 64/800=8% to 50/1,000=5% are down three points or 37.5% relatively, yet cracks rising from 0.5% to 2% block an overall success claim until side effect and detection are checked. For technology, separate cash saving from theoretical time: 180,000 investment, 90,000 saving and 30,000 running cost yield three-year simple payback, while half benefit extends it to 12.

   4 lessons · 3.5 hours

   1. Process variation, defects and inspection limits 40 min
   2. Root cause and measured improvement 40 min
   3. Evaluating technology and capital proposals 40 min
   4. Validating a planning-system change 40 min

Subjects unlock in sequence as you progress.

Strengths

• Domain-to-application map.
• Cases and exercises with solutions and limits.
• Explained original bilingual questions.

Evidence basis

Documented ASCM CPIM 9.0 outline; original cases and questions.

How the route works

Professional Certification Preparation programs help learners prepare for a recognized external certification through structured knowledge, review, practice questions, and readiness assessments. Arab Platform for Professional Studies (ARPS) does not administer the certification owner's official exam.

Structured self-paced study aligned to the current external certification scope, with knowledge review, practice questions, readiness checks, and internal mock assessments.

• Focused preparation for a specific external certification.
• Content aligned to the current official exam scope when available.
• Practice questions and internal readiness assessments.
• Clear separation between Arab Platform for Professional Studies (ARPS) preparation and the official external exam.

Assessment

The route includes an internal assessment for Arab Platform for Professional Studies (ARPS) completion eligibility and separate mock/readiness assessments that are not the external official exam.

Assessment attempts: 2 per assessment, 7 days apart

The pass mark is announced before the program is published.

Certificate

The Arab Platform for Professional Studies (ARPS) credential confirms completion of the preparation program only; the target professional certification requires passing the external issuer's examination under its rules.

Every certificate has a public verification code. Verify a certificate

Verification example: a real issued certificate

Disclaimer: Any internal completion credential concerns this program only and is not CPIM or ASCM endorsement.

Program questions