University of Alberta Alberta School of Business
Department of Accounting, Operations and Information Systems
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OM 502 Course Outline – Winter 2013
Instructor: Bora Kolfal, Ph.D.
Office: BUS 3-40H Phone: 492-8466
Email: [email protected] Office hours: by appointment (email 3 available times)
Required Texts:
1. Managing Business Process Flows, 3rd Ed. by Anupindi, Chopra, Deshmukh, Van Mieghem, and Zemel, Prentice Hall, 2012
2. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement, 25th Anniversary Edition by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, North River Press, 2012
3. Course Package: A course package containing the cases will be printed and will be required.
Course description: All firms must create and deliver goods or services. This course is about how that is done. The emphasis in this course is on strategic and tactical decision making in this domain so as to create competitive advantage for the organization. Specific modules may include process analysis, inventory management, distribution, and quality. A number of case studies will be used. The operations of firms vary widely by industry and it is not possible to cover all topics associated with a single industry in this course. The topics and techniques selected for this course are applicable to a wide variety of
industries.
Approach to the material: In general we will do a case each class. Students must be prepared to discuss each case. In a case driven course preparation, attendance and participation are important.
We will follow the textbook reasonably closely so the chapters in the book will give you a rough roadmap for the semester. Week by week, more specific guidelines will be given on the uLearn website. We will use this website extensively in this course, so make sure that you check it frequently.
Timetable:
Lecture Date Chapters Case Assessments
1 08-Jan-13 1,2 Intro
2 15-Jan-13 3- Little's Law Samsung
3 22-Jan-13 4- Flowtime Dore Dore Quiz 1, Little's Law
4 29-Jan-13 5- Capacity Kristen's Cookie Co.
5 05-Feb-13 6- Inventory National Cranberry
6 12-Feb-13 7- Safety Stock Alpine Tobacco Homework 1, The Goal 19-Feb-13 READING WEEK (No class)
7 26-Feb-13 8- Queuing I University Health Services Homework 2 8 05-Mar-13 8- Queuing II Benihana of Tokyo
9 12-Mar-13 9- Process Control Donner Quiz 2, Chapters 4-8 10 19-Mar-13 10- Lean Operations Toyota
11 26-Mar-13 Optimization-part I American Connector, Group presentation
12 02-Apr-13 Optimization-part II Group presentation Homework 3
13 09-Apr-13 Final exam part I
Page 2 of 3 Evaluation: The course mark will be based on:
Assessment Weight Comments Class participation 15% Lectures 1 -13
Quiz 1-2 20% 10% each
Homework 1-3 15% 5% each Group
presentations
- Optional: If higher, the presentation mark will replace the two of the lowest quiz and assignment marks.
Final exam - Part I 25% 3 hour closed book exam
Final exam - Part II 25% 3 hour case driven, open book exam
Total 100%
Class Participation grade includes 3 elements:
- Attendance: Total attendance mark will be calculated as 100-10log(n2), where n is the number of absents.
- Case questions: Each case will be accompanied by a few discussion questions to let you know what we will be talking about in reference to that case. Students must prepare the questions with an asterisk (*) for turn in at the beginning of class. None will be accepted late. Answer the questions quickly and specifically. Spend your time reading and thinking about the case. Do not spend a lot of time answering the questions. They will be graded as either done or not done and, if they are handed in, they have to be pretty bad to get a grade of not done.
- Active participation: Students are expected to take an active part in the discussion.
Quiz 1 (Little’s Law) is a short 30 minute, closed book quiz.
Quiz 2 (Chapters 4-8) is a 45-60 minute, open-book quiz.
Homework 1 (The Goal) is due the Tuesday before 6th lecture at 2pm.
- The Goal is a textbook disguised as a novel. As a novel, it won’t win any prizes. As a textbook it is quite effective, if a tad corny. Students are responsible for reading the entire book. If you read it, you’ll learn something. The intent of the assignment is to determine if you read it.
Homework 2 & 3 are due the Tuesday before the 7th and 12th lectures at 2pm.
Group Presentations will be run as 30-minute workshop sessions by groups of up to four volunteered students. In each “workshop” the presenting group presents a case driven operations management problem, and solves the problem step by step with/for the class.
- Students will be graded for participation during the workshops the same as lectures.
- The workshop is supposed to run interactively. The presenting group should monitor and guide the class in solving the case as the session goes on.
- Presenting groups can volunteer until the end of 7th week of the class.
- Group presentation evaluation metrics will be made available on uLearn.
Final Exam - Part I is a 3-hour in-class, closed book exam on the 9th of April.
Final Exam - Part II is a case driven, open book, 3-hour exam. The tentative exam date is the 19th of April, Friday, at 2pm.
Page 3 of 3 Notes:
Policy about course outlines can be found in §23.4(2) of the University Calendar.
Students who require accommodations in this course due to a disability affecting mobility, vision, hearing, learning, or mental or physical health are advised to discuss their needs with Specialized Support and Disability Services (SSDS), 2-800 Students' Union Building, 492-3381 (phone) or 492-7269 (TTY).
The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty.
Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behaviour (online at www.governance.ualberta.ca) and avoid any behaviour which could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University. All assignments (except for the group activities) are to be completed individually. However, I recognize the value of studying together and comparing notes when working on assignments. To help you judge what I consider acceptable and non-acceptable collaboration, consider the following:
Do:
Discuss the course material with other students.
Ask classmates for help when you are stumped.
Offer help to other students.
Do your own work.
Don't:
Discuss numerical answers with other students.
Use someone else's words without proper attribution. The best way to avoid using another student's words is to never look at another student's written answers to an assignment. If you quote an article, book, web page, or any other source in your project report, then you must reference that source.
Copy another student's spreadsheet file or other computer file. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Copying another student's file for an assignment (or another group's work, for the group activities) is not acceptable, under any circumstances. It is immaterial whether the copying is done electronically or manually.
