PRODUCTION/OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT Spring 2001

Course Description: A survey of relevant quantitative techniques and decision support models for use in managerial decision support systems, all within the context of a total quality management and Production/Operations environment. Topic presentations range from broad based descriptions of models and quantitative techniques to actual applications and manipulations of various quantitative models with the computer. Prerequisites include college algebra, statistics, and basic management.

Required Texts:

Goldratt, Eliyahu M., and Jeff Cox, THE GOAL: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, Second Revised Edition, (Great Barrington, MA: The North River Press Publishing Corporation) 1992 ISBN 0-88427-061-0 (G&C)

Russell, Roberta S., and Bernard W. Taylor III, Operations Management: Multimedia Version, 3rd Edition, with POM Decision Support Software  (Upper Saddle River N.J.:Prentice-Hall, Inc.) 2000 ISBN  0-13-016050-4 (R&T)

The Wall Street Journal Semester Subscription - available through a class sign-up sheet (WSJ)

Suggested Texts:

Brocka, Bruce and M. Suzanne Brocka, Essentials of Quality Management, (Boston, MA: Richard D. Irwin, Inc.) 1993 (B&B)

Costin, Harry, Readings in Total Quality Management, (Fort Worth: The Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace College Publishers) 1994 (COSTIN)

Dobyns, Lloyd, and Clare Crawford-Mason, Quality or Else: The Revolution in World Business, (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company) 1991 (D&C)

Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell, The Holt Handbook, 5th Ed., (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers) 1999 ISBN 0-15-507904-2(HOLT)

SPC EXpert Software User's Manual: Quality Assurance and Quality Control Software, (Kettering, OH: Quality Software Designs, Inc.) March, 1993 (SPCEX) (availability TBA)

Various Handouts and Web Documents as Assigned

Course Objectives:

The topics presented in this course include the traditional Operations Management activities such as inventory control, scheduling, project management, forecasting, etc. But they will be taught within the context of, and organized around several contextual approaches to operations management. Modern operations management is now conceived of as an integrated process which flows to the ultimate consumer through an interdependent chain of components which acquire, transform, and distribute materials and services that meet the consumers' needs. Separate approaches to studying this process have developed independent specialities designed to optimize the various components of the process. One of the specialities that has been popularized is the context of the overall quality improvement approach to management, so we will relate each of the topics to ongoing process improvement concepts. The philosophy of Decision Support Systems studies the application of various models to assist in analyzing operations management alternatives. Simulation analyses studies various operations management issues to answer questions about how the overall process might behave when running its systems. Today, the organizing concept used is the topic of supply chain management and logistics. The growing application of B2B e-commerce has greatly enhanced the ability of organizations to integrate operations management activities even across organizational boundries in an integrated approach to the acquisition, transformation and distribution of goods and services which can be efficiently be produced to meet the consumer needs. It is within this context that the course strives to achieve the following learning objectives:

2. To understand how the philosophy of Total Quality and Excellence applies to the Operations Management environment.

3. To understand the Supply Chain Management approach to Operations Management, especially the logistics component of Materials Management, and how various Decision Support models can assist in implementing efficient systems.

4. To become aware of some of the applications of quantitative techniques and models that provide useful tools with which to gather and analyze information about various alternatives.

5. To apply the mathematical analyses required to quantitatively approach and analyze operations problems.

6. To be familiar with the use of computers and the internet in preparation, analysis, and presentation of complex DSS applications in the operations environment.

7. To gain confidence in the uses and application of quantitative analysis techniques by knowing the advantages, shortcomings, and assumptions of such approaches, and by applying some of these techniques to the actual work place.

8. To prepare and report the use of DSS to analyze and recommend possible courses of action to be taken for various POM situations.

Course Format:

This course will be held during the morning floater time slot, 8:00 AM Tuesday, 9:00 AM Wednesday, and 10 AM - 12 PM Thursday. Initially, the focus of the class will be the presentation and class discussion of an operations management context within which this class will be offered. I have scheduled guest speakers early in the semester. I have also assigned a considerable load of early reading to help set the context and environment of Operations Management and to prepare for the guest speakers. Topics of study will be developed with input from the class participants through classroom discussion and participation on the class listserve. After the topics are developed and the class agrees upon them, student teams will prepare and present the topics. We will use the WWW to make available on a widely accessible basis the material each team presents in the class. Assigned homework will be discussed in class. Students will be responsible for completing homework in a timely manner.

We also have available to us an E-mail Listserve which we will use to enhance our discussions.  I plan to include several actual operations managers from the area who will also contribute to the listserve discussion. You may send a message to the entire class by addressing your e-mail to <ba333a@snc.edu> (eliminate the brackets). This is an open, unmoderated listserve, so anything you send to it will be distributed to the entire list. It is meant to foster discussion, answer questions, provide assignments and clarifications, and generally stimulate the discussion of operations management issues among the class participants and guests. Please be sure to access your e-mail regularly, even if you normally use another mail e-mail server (i.e. hotmail or AOL). You should access this e-mail group as often as one or more times a day depending on the volume of messages the list experiences.  I will illustrate the use of the mail list early in the semester.

One use of e-mail that we will institute this semester is to turn in assigned check quizzes on the Text's web server. The course schedule indicates dates and times of text reading assignments, and the due dates of the review check quizzes in my e-mail box. We will also hold discussions regarding the assignments made through the web affiliation of the book, or of questions I ask you or questions asked by you or your classmates on the listserve. Address your comments to the listserve <ba333a@snc.edu> to share your entries with everyone on the list. This discussion should focus on the questions asked, and provide your perspectives, which you can document with references to the course resources or other items you wish to include as documentation. Your opinions are appropriate, but you need to reference the resources that helped you form those opinions.

Finally, the students in this class class will be organized into teams for the purpose of preparing and presenting topics as assigned.  After several weeks of context setting and topic definition, each team will select a specific topic from a list provided by the instructor, and prepare a learning unit for the class. This unit will include a comprehensive WWW page of references, explanations, and links to relevant sites which further explain the topic. The objective of this presentation is to share with the entire class the information about a topic which will enable them to be able to conduct a proper analysis themselves of an issue using the tools and techniques of that topic. The associated web pages should be thorough enough to guide a naive student through the topic so that one is able to apply the topic tools and techniques to a given situation. The topic web pages will be posted on the SNC World Wide Web pages under the URL

Grading:

The grade in this course will be determined by both individual and group activities. Likewise,  your peers, yourselves, and your instructor will have an opportunity to provide input to the grading activities for the course. Class members will earn individual grades for their email participation, for their class participation and attendance, by completing speaker critiques and assigned paper reviews, and by the inputs from other members of the class and their teams. They will share a team grade for the presentation of their topics and for the web pages they publish, as judged by both the other class members and by the instructor. We will have one midterm exam which presents the opportunities above, and an end-of-term exam on Thursday, May 17, 2001 at 9:15 AM. Specific assignments will be discussed in class and will be posted on the class web page and listserve. Grade weights and numerical equivalents will be applied as indicated in the tables below.

Individual	Individual	Individual	Individual	Group	Group	Individual
Participation, homework,  and Email	Paper Review and Speaker Critiques	Midterm Exam I	Peer Reviews	Group Presentation	Group Web Page	Exam II
10%	10%	20%	10%	15%	15%	20%

 

The grading philosophy of this instructor is as follows. Most graded assignments and exercises are worthy of a whole letter grade (i.e. A, B, C, D, or F). Only in rare instances will I judge an assignment to be worthy of an intermediate grade (i.e. AB, BC, or CD). When the various components of the overall course grade are aggregated at the end of the semester, I will assign course grades will as a weighted combination of the separate grades earned during the semester. When a whole letter grade is not appropriate, intermediate grades may be awarded for the course to those who are not definitively worthy of a whole grade.

It may be instructive to review my perceptions of the performance levels necessary for you to earn each of the whole grades. A grade of "A" is due the student who consistently accomplishes superior work in all aspects of graded assignments. Only a small number of students typically perform at this level on a constant basis. "B" students consistently provide quality work for their assignments, are nearly always correct in their responses, but usually could be more elegant and precise in their work. Those worthy of the "C" grade are occasionally incorrect in their responses and often overlook important aspects of the assignment or are unable to elaborate well on a topic. "D" students often provide inaccurate or incomplete work, usually overlook important aspects of the assignment, and generally manifest a sloppy demeanor toward their work. Students who are incorrect or haphazard about their work, and make no attempt to demonstrate an understanding of the course material will earn an "F" for their efforts. When the separate grades for all the course assignments are aggregated into a course grade, each will be weighted as listed above, and the overall average will be awarded to the student.

Teaching Philosophy:

At the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) Forum during the summer of 1993, Ted Marchese, then the AAHE Vice President, presented a model of the traditional bargain between students and teachers in the classroom. It was described as one in which students agree to behave reasonably well in the classroom, to give reasonable teacher evaluations, and to comply with reasonable course assignments by the teacher IF the teacher sticks to the text in lectures, keeps the homework simple and straight forward, and writes tests that stick to the material covered in class. This is the model that students have experienced from kindergarten on. He commented that it works adequately in those situations where the primary purpose of the teaching effort is to transfer knowledge and facts between teacher and students. It is successful for transmitting information bits.

Marchese judged it to be a poor model for learning in depth or for learning higher order skills, such as integration, synthesis, and evaluation. Nor does it effectively provide for personal growth of students. Other, more participative learning strategies, which actively involve students, are necessary to address such goals. If you refer to the objectives presented for this course at the beginning of this syllabus, you will note that I am interested in much more than just providing information bits for you. That being the case, I am reluctant to implement the traditional model presented above. Rather, I am interested in actively involving students in class learning opportunities. This requires initiative, creativity, independence and participation by students in my classes. The various activities I assign are designed to provide for the students an opportunity to become more actively involved in the learning process. Please reflect on this approach and its implications for you regarding your performance in this class. For you to benefit as much as possible, you will have to modify your traditional classroom behavior. Plan to actively participate in the learning activities I assign. Feel free to explore unassigned resources, those in the library and others which are available elsewhere. Spend time interacting with your classmates outside of class. Visit with me in my office or anywhere else we might meet on campus. Seek out your peers and me to discuss the issues of management as they apply to assignments, and as they apply to your personal life. Those who actively give of themselves in the pursuit of the goals in this course will be far more successful attaining them than those who embrace the traditional model designed only to trade information bits. Good luck, and I look forward to your active participation in this class.

Academic Honor Code:

It is expected that students will abide by the prescriptions of the St. Norbert College Academic Honor Code. The instructor will make clear for all assignments the types of resources that are authorized or restricted. In all cases it is incumbent upon the student to reference appropriately those sources drawn on for all work presented. If you have any questions at all about the appropriateness of a particular situation, please ask me to clarify my perspective for you. It is far more appropriate to receive prior approval than to argue your case subsequent to a possible violation. You will find that I am fairly liberal in allowing you as much freedom as possible to satisfy the responsibilities of my assignments, and meet the learning objectives of the course.

To contact the St. Norbert College Web Administrator, send e-mail to: webmaster@snc.edu.
 

This page approved by St. Norbert College. URL of this page: http://www.snc.edu/socsci/chair/333/333syl01.html  Last modified: May 3, 2001