Subject to changes
Admission requirements
3rd year Bachelor students
Description
Operations Management (OM) is a broad area of research. It consists of traditional research areas, such as inventory management, as well as recently emerging research trends like revenue management. The OM research literature is huge and spans more than 5 decades of an exciting blend of theory and application. In recent years there has been an increasing awareness among large corporations and academic institutes of the potential of high quality theoretical and applied OM research in improving fundamental business processes across many sectors. Undoubtedly, operational problems can affect stock prices and shareholder wealth and the value of an effective operations strategy is tremendous. The key question is then how to determine the effective operations strategy which allows firms to significantly increase the likelihood of success, and what are the principles, frameworks, and processes that companies can follow to determine such a strategy?
Course objectives
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to some of the fundamental aspects of OM. These aspects include inventory management, facility location planning, capacity management, pricing, technology, etc. More specifically, the course will:
i. Make students conversant in the language of OM and expand their knowledge in this field.
ii. Help students develop modelling skills and provide them concepts and problem-solving tools, which are applicable to OM. We will cover a broad range of mathematical and analytical techniques in both traditional application domains, such as inventory control, capacity, transportation and production planning, and emerging application domains, such as product assortment and portfolio optimization.
iii. Give students 'hands-on' feel of how OM decisions are made in practice and why they are so complex.
Timetable
Preliminary schedule
Semester 1:
Course: October 7th – October 31st 2019
Exam: November 7th 2019, 14:15 – 17:15 hrs
Semester 2:Course: March 3rd – March 26th 2020
Exam: April 6th 2020, 14:15 – 17:15 hrs
Mode of instruction
The course will be a mix of in-class lectures, online lectures, case discussions and computerized applications. Students are expected to prepare all the pre-assigned readings and be active and effective participants during the class. Class attendance is mandatory.
Course Load
8 2-hour lectures
Preparation for each lecture
Final 3-hour exam
Assessment method
Assignments (40%)
There are three individual assignments (3x5%) and two group assignments (2x10%). Students will also need to give a presentation on the second group assignment (5%). All assignments should be submitted in electronic copy to Blackboard at the specified time and date.
Individual Assignment Policy
Pass or Fail: you get a Pass (full grade) when you complete every question and submit the assignment. If you have difficulties answering certain questions, write down your thoughts, instead of leaving them out.
Among the three individual assignments, you are allowed one chance of late submission with a delay of maximal 24 hours. Beyond that, late submission will not be accepted.
Group Assignment Policy
- Each member needs to complete a peer evaluation form independently. Your individual score for a group assignment is calculated based on the evaluations. It is your own responsibility to submit the evaluation on time. If you forgot to submit, you receive 0 for this assignment and it will not influence other group members’ scores.
Mid-term exam (20%)
In addition to the take-home assignments, there is a closed-book mid-term exam based on the content of Lecture 3 and 4. This mid-term exam will take place during Lecture 6.
Final Exam (40%)
There will be a closed-book exam which covers all the lectures (both online and in-class), in-class discussions, assignments, case studies, and readings.
The final score needs to be at least 5.5 (on a scale of 10) in order to pass the course. In addition, students need to have at least 50% of the points in each component to pass the course. This means, for instance, you could pass the course only if you score at least 5 in the exam (on a scale of 10). The final grade is rounded off to the nearest half or integer.
Blackboard
Yes, students can go to Blackboard to enroll themselves.
Reading list
We recommend the following books (not mandatory), and suggest complementary readings throughout the class:
Simchi-Levi, Kaminsky and Simchi-Levi, Designing and Managing the Supply Chain, Irwin McGraw Hill, 3rd edition, 2008.
Chopra and Meindl, Supply Chain Management, Prentice Hall, 2nd edition 2004.
Registration
Students have to register for the course in uSis. The registration in uSis for 2018-2019 will open two months before the start of the academic year. Click here for instructions.
This course can only be followed as part of the SBB minor (15 or 30 ECTS).