Other MBA courses address managing people, money, customers, markets, strategies, and information technologies. This course deals with managing the actual work that organizations do. Work happens in processes. Managers must choose the right kind of processes and find the right balance of efficiency and effectiveness that leads to enduringly valuable results. Towards that end, this course deals with some major concepts in operations management (OM), the management of ongoing business processes. We look at firms from an integrated processes perspective, stressing that all activities and functions of a firm must work together in an organized way to provide a result of value to the firm’s stakeholders. OM spans the entire firm—e.g., a Chief Operating Officer (COO) overseeing the work of research and development, marketing, design/engineering, production, sales, delivery, support, service, etc. A COO is responsible for the effective, efficient, and predictable execution of integrated processes to achieve results of value.

A working knowledge of operations and processes is indispensable for all managers and entrepreneurs. Hence, this course is part of the MBA core curriculum and aims to (1) familiarize you with several of the challenges and issues in managing operations and processes and (2) provide you with vocabulary, concepts, insights, and tools to address these issues and gain competitive advantage. The course provides an overview of several areas, brief exposure to some decision support models, and experience with some basic tools. Throughout the course, we will stress the importance of critical thinking and understanding the assumptions underlying managerial models.

Students should be able to:

1. Communicate with the basic terminology of work processes and OM.

2. Articulate the roles of OM and repetitive processes as sources of competitive advantage.

3. Measure and analyze the performance and capability of repetitive process models.

4. Evaluate the performance of contrived and operational processes.

5. Explain the basics of process improvement concepts such as Lean and Six Sigma.

6. Demonstrate understanding and application of methods for: aligning operations with strategy, developing valuable products and services, selecting appropriate process designs, analyzing repetitive processes (including throughput, cycle time, inventory, utilization, and capacity), improving processes, and integrating processes.

7. Explain the role of quantitative modeling in providing managerial decision support.

8. Apply knowledge, conduct analyses, and make suitable recommendations in case-based situations.

9. Think critically about OM assumptions, models, methods, analyses, and concepts.