Direct any questions to me at bradley.meyer@drake.edu

Description:

Management 120:  Management of Operations.   This course will be offered in the summer of 2008 via the Internet.

This course concerns the operations function of a business, which is the unit that accomplishes the work for which customers pay money.  We touch operations everyday.  If you have ever had to wait for a doctor or wait at a checkout stand; if you have ever purchased a product and found a part missing; if you have experienced poor service at a hotel or restaurant; if you have had someone tell you that the item you want is not currently available; if you have worked at a job and been told to do something in a way that was clearly inefficient; then you realize that world needs better operations management. 

This course is full of concepts, principles, and methods to understand and better manage operations.  Through interactive on-line exercises, you will be introduced to the realities of managing operations and to the analytical tools used in the field.   Topics covered include operations strategy, methods analysis, work measurement, capacity planning, inventory control, managing waiting lines, allocation of scarce resources, and project management.

To take this course you must have junior standing, Math 20 (pre-calc.), and IS 40 or IS 44. (or ample experience with spreadsheets.)  Stat 71 is recommended, but not strictly required.  You will be required to work with an Excel spreadsheet for several assignments.  
 

Dates:

This course will begin on May 19 and will be completed July 11.   Note, May 19 is three weeks earlier than the first summer session, and July 11 is the end of the first summer session.  This schedule will allow for less compaction of material and more time for questions and interactions during the course.   There will be material due each week.  
 

Text:

The text for this course is Heizer and Render's Operations Management, 8th Edition, Flexible edition.  Pearson Prentice Hall.   It comes as a package with a book and a student lecture guide.  The book is ISBN 0-13-237060-3 and the student lecture guide is ISBN 0-13-237062-X.   I believe the authors have another similar text that has a a similar but longer title.  That is a different book.  You can buy this at the  local campus bookstore, before you leave for summer or order online through one of the book sellers like Amazon.com.  Make sure you have the book by the time the class starts, which is immediately after spring semester.  

The textbook publisher for this book also has an online system for homework problems, called OneKey.  If possible, by the text version that comes with OneKey Access.  The version I order for the bookstore, comes packaged with a passcode to get access to the OneKey system.  If you buy the book online, you might have difficulty getting one with this access.  However, that is not a big problem, because you can buy access online when you get into Blackboard and then go to the OneKey link.   OneKey access purchased this way is about $25.  I think it is a little cheaper if you are able to buy it packaged with the text.  Let me know if you run into questions about this.  

Course structure:

There will be two main sources of knowledge for this class.  The textbook and on-line lecture notes.  The course is divided into 6 units.  Each unit covers one major aspect of operations: 

There will be on-line notes for each of these units.  There will also be a set of lecture notes over some of the more difficult techniques and concepts covered in the text.  Email and a forum facility will allow you to interact with the professor or with other students in the class when you have questions about the material.  (Phone calls and office visits are welcome as well.)

There will be two types of assignments in the class and two exams.  You will have six discovery exercises that ask you to do some exploring before reading the text and online material.  These are small exercises worth 2 points each.  You will also have 6 application assignments worth 5 to 15 points.  Most of these can be done with help from Excel.  The two exams are worth 100 points each.  Your final grade will be determined based on the percentage of points you earn.  The exams will be scheduled to run at the same time for the entire class (in two or three time slots) and will be administered on line.  The exact times of the exam is determined by polling the class for availability.  In the past I have been commonly running three exam times: Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday afternoon/evening.

The course is structured on a weekly basis.  There is a Blackboard learning unit for each week of the course that will tell you what readings and assignments are to be done during that week.  The assignments can be done at your own pace and be submitted any time during the week.  You can work ahead, if desired, but you cannot fall behind without special circumstances.
 

Cautions:

 It is important to note that this class has material that will work best with a broad band internet connection.  A few exercises require you to have Java turned on in your browser and several others will use Flash (commonly needed for You-tube, etc. )  If you have a unreliable connection or an especially slow connection you may have difficulty with these exercises.  I will try to have a CD of large files available for pickup at my office before the end of the semester, that will provide the big movie type files in case you have a slow connection.  

This course is more mathematical than most management courses.  If you find mathematical exercises difficult without personal attention from the instructor, you may find it in your best interests not to take the Web version of this course.