Skip navigation

Stefan Hoogervorst

CPIM, CSCP, CLTD, CDDP, CDDL, CSCA

Please tell us in which company and position you started your APICS certification(s)? What was your motivation to complete the certification(s)?
"The first APICS certification I took was the CSCP (Certified Supply Chain Professional) certification. This was in 2008 when I was working as a senior lecturer logistics and supply chain management at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. My main motivation to take the CSCP certification was the fact that we were redesigning our curriculum at that time. Being one of the core members of the project team, I wanted to ensure that in our redesign all the elements of end-to-end supply chain management were covered and that all theoretical frameworks would be strongly linked to actual practice. The best way to do so was to take an international standard as reference, this being the APICS Body of Knowledge and CSCP certification. I saw great value in a globally recognized supply chain standard framework and a common supply chain language, so I directly continued with the CPIM (Certified in Production and Inventory Management ) certification and completed the 5 modules one year later in 2009. In 2016 I also completed the CLTD (Certified in Logistics, Transportation and Distribution)."

How did your certification(s) help you to achieve the position you are currently in?
"My APICS certifications in combination with my work on rolling out the supply chain simulation The Fresh Connection on a global scale brought me in contact with PMI and are still the foundations for my current position as Director of Education and Research at PMI. Having three APICS certifications allows me to teach all courses within our supply chain education and certification portfolio. In my opinion this is also a key element for two other very important responsibilities within my position:
1. speaking to our customers and to support them to build the supply chain function and competences within their organizations and
2. managing our trainer network of supply chain expert practitioners.
Here again the globally recognized standard and common language play a critical role to ensure consistency, quality and a structured sustainable approach towards our customers and trainers."

Please give us a concrete example, where you have applied the APICS knowledge in your career.
"When our customers want to discuss their stage of supply chain maturity and their vision of the supply chain function, having the APICS framework in mind allows me to classify their challenges and future steps very quickly in a structured way. And if my counterparts are also APICS certified, we are discussing according to the same frameworks and references which helps us to establish a roadmap to supply chain competence development in a relatively short time in a very structured way."


Back