A study on students employability experience through simulation development content for logistics and transportation field in Malaysia

• Main Authors: Zainuddin, Nizamuddin, Mohd Saifudin, Adam, Bahaudin, Ahmad Yusni, Zalazilah, Mohd Hanizan, Jamaludin, Roslan
• Format: Book Section
• Language: English
• Published: University of Malaysia Pahang, Kuala Lumpur Campus, Malaysia 2015
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/17306/1/AGBA12%20529-539.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/17306/

As educational technology has improved, the effective use of simulations has greatly increased to the point where simulations should be considered a valuable, mainstream pedagogical tool.Lecturers often express the challenges involved in educating students from the millennium generation.It can be said that the teaching needs of this generation are more experientially focused. Simulations, in concert with other experiential teaching tools, allow lecturers to facilitate learning more effectively. Additionally, in this era of ongoing (some say never-ending) assessment, simulations offer a rich resource for objective measurement and comparisons. Simulation is not just another in the long line of passing fads (or short term opportunities) in educational technology. It is, rather, a real key to helping our students understand the world.It is a way for students to acquire experience about how things and systems in the world behave and react, without actually touching them. In short it is about interactive pretending (Prensky, 2007).Simulation is all about representing the real world which includes grasping the complex issues and solving intricate problems. Malaysian companies would continually increase their capabilities in the logistics services in the near future through the implementation of activities such as warehousing management, inventory replenishment and order fulfillment (Sohail & Sohail, 2003). In today’s competitive business environment which many companies are strategizing to gain and share the global markets, companies are actively taking advantage of higher production and sourcing efficiency.Keys to that success are determined by the role of the logistics function in ensuring the smooth flow of materials, products and information throughout a company’s supply chains (Sum et al., 2001). Due to the ever increasing importance of the logistics and transportation industry, it has resulted to the expansion of the international trade as well as an active endorsement of the company’s and business’s globalization strategy (Rosena et al., 2008), as cited by Saifudin (2012).The main objective of this approach is to expose the students to the experience of working in the related fields. This is done during the period of student studying in the university. Besides reducing the time and cost of sending the students to work for a limited period of time (internship) in the industry, it add more experience to what the students has learnt in the university.The methodology of accomplishing this fact-finding research is through coming together and scheduling an interview or appointment with the industry players for clear and vivid understanding of the whole logistics and transportation business.During these process, a generic work flow will be developed and documented.The work flow will be an integrated one that can pictures the whole industry. Then the documented process will be simulated through a system platform provider (for example, Malaysia Practice Enterprise Corporation or MyPEC and others) which will link to other business simulation process applications.As a result, students can embark in the simulation practice to achieve a hands on experience on the reality of the industry that associates to logistics and transportation through out their study in the university.The whole process will enhanced the students’ skill and not just receiving knowledge but practicing and experiencing knowledge. It will also enrich students’ employ ability experience so that they will be always ready to serve and work in the necessitating the field of logistics and transportation after graduation.