Objectives

Operations management is the area of management responsible for designing and managing the production of a good or service to achieve the organization's objectives.

In this course, we view organizations as entities that must balance the supply of what they produce with the demand for their products.

The main objective of the course is therefore to understand how and when the tools of operations management can be used:

• To ensure that resources are used as efficiently as possible,
• To make desirable trade-offs between competing objectives,
• To redesign or restructure operations so that performance on multiple dimensions is improved simultaneously.

The course is given in English on Fridays from 12:30 to 14:00 in Amphipole B.

Contents

The course covers the following topics:

• The process view of the organization
• Understanding the supply process
• Estimating and reducing labor costs
• Batching and other flow interruptions
• Balancing setup and inventory costs
• Variability and its impact: waiting time problems
• Scheduling to prioritize demand
• Betting on uncertain demand: the newsvendor model
• Assemble-to-Order and Make-to-Order
• Service levels and lead times

Exercises are included in each course to help you understand the material. Student assistants are present to help you with these exercises. They can also answer your questions on Moodle.

References

The course is based on the 4th Edition of Matching Supply with Demand: An Introduction to Operations Management by Gerard Cachon and Christian Terwiesch.

Pre-requisites

None

Term project

- Type of project : none for 2022
- Maximum number of projects admitted for this course : 0
- Deadline for applying to course professor for project : none
- Deadline for submitting finished project : none
- Method of evaluation (including resit options) : none
- Other information : none

Evaluation

First attempt

Exam:

Written 2 hours

Documentation:

Not allowed

Calculator:

Allowed with restrictions

Evaluation:

A written exam (closed book) counts for 100% of the final grade. This exam takes place during the exam session and contains theoretical questions and exercises on the course topics.

Retake

Exam:

Written 2 hours

Documentation:

Not allowed

Calculator:

Allowed with restrictions

Evaluation:

Students who fail to achieve a score of 4.0 on the final exam will be allowed to take a 2-hour make-up exam, on which they must achieve at least a score of 4 to pass the course.