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Operations Management I & II

Operations and supply chains are responsible for the bulk of the assets of a company and their deployment has a significant impact on performance. The first part of this course focuses on operational choices for a single company. We will focus on firm level choices of capacity, inventory and lead time to optimize performance.  Our goal is to understand the impact of these choices on the system and anticipate the impact of making changes. Example operations we will discuss will include manufacturing and service systems, ranging from automobile and appliances to call centers,  health care and banking.    The second part of the course will focus on managing supply chains i.e., collections of firms who jointly generate the product or service.  We will focus on understanding the impact of network structure, levels of capacity, impact of forecast error and lead time, approaches to manage global procurement etc. We will also discuss ways to improve coordination and competitiveness of such supply chains.  Example supply chain contexts will include electronics, grocery, chemicals, consumer appliances and retail services.  We will use a combination of lectures, simulations, case discussions and team exercises as pedagogical approaches. In summary, the two courses will develop the capability to enhance competitiveness by improving the management of the operation or supply chain.