This core course introduces the basic concepts and methods of management
science and their application to the analyses of management decision problems.
The focus of the course is on those methods that have proven most useful in a
variety of private and public sector contexts. The general content of the
course includes the art and science of decision making, constrained
optimization, and process analysis tools. This is reflected in such specific
topics as decision analysis, linear programming (with emphasis on formulation
and sensitivity analysis), and simulation.
OPIM-631: Operations Management: Quality and Productivity
This course emphasizes processes. A process is a set of interrelated work
activities characterized by specific inputs and value-adding tasks that
produce specific outputs. In the first part of the course we will see examples
of a number of processes and learn how to describe a process with a flow
diagram. We will also learn to measure key process parameters like capacity
and lead time, and to improve a process through approaches like finding and
removing bottlenecks or better division of the work among the people involved
in the process. The second part of the course focuses on process improvement
and will examine some classic ideas in quality management as well as recent
ideas about restructuring processes for increased performance.
Format: Lectures, cases, class discussions.
Matching supply with demand is a primary challenge for a firm: excess supply
is too costly, inadequate supply irritates customers. Matching supply to
demand is easiest when a firm has a flexible supply process, but flexibility
is generally expensive. In this course we will learn (1) how to assess the
appropriate level of supply flexibility for a given industry and (2) explore
strategies for economically increasing a firm’s supply flexibility. While
tactical models and decisions are part of this course, the emphasis is on the
qualitative insights needed by general managers or management consultants. We
will demonstrate that companies can use (and have used) the principles from
this course to significantly enhance their competitiveness.
OPIM-650: Operational Performance Analysis
Operational performance has long been emphasized as a key driver of firm value
in the basic materials industries (e.g., steel or paper) as well as in mature
and highly competitive manufacturing industries (e.g., automotive or personal
computers). In contrast, industries such as financial services, healthcare, or
pharmaceuticals have enjoyed sufficiently high margins that operational
performance only recently began receiving significant managerial attention.
Given its emergence as a relatively new topic in these industries, managers
and consultants often struggle with questions such as “What performance
measures should we track?”, “How do operational performance measures impact
the bottom line performance?”, or “How do we go about improving processes to
achieve various operational performance improvements, including cost savings,
lead-time reduction, or increases in product variety?” Even in more mature
industries, managers often struggle to correctly prioritize operational
improvement initiatives and to link them directly to financial performance.
The objective of the course is to provide students with a set of tools that
supports them in analyzing the operational performance of a company and to
guide them in increasing the overall value of the firm by improving its
operations. Specifically, we will discuss how to:
1. Develop an integrated model linking operational performance measures to financial value
2. Analyze indicators of opportunities for operational improvement
3. Identify levers (techniques) to improve operational performance
4. Value potential operational improvements, both individually as well as
collectively
OPIM-651: Innovation, Problem Solving and Design
This course is first and foremost an intensive, integrative, project course in
which student teams create one or more real businesses. Some businesses spun
out of the course and now managed by alumni include Terrapass Inc. and Smatchy
Inc. The project experience is an exciting context in which to learn key tools
and fundamentals useful in innovation, problem solving, and design. Examples
of these tools and fundamentals are: problem definition, identification of
opportunities, generating alternatives, selecting among alternatives,
principles of data graphics, and managing innovation pipelines. The course
requires a commitment of at least 10 hours of work outside of class and
comfort working on unstructured, interdisciplinary problems. Students with a
strong interest in innovation and entrepreneurship are particularly encouraged
to enroll. Please read carefully the syllabus posted on-line before
registering for this course.
OPIM-653: Mathematical Modeling and Its Application in Finance
Quantitative methods have become fundamental tools in the analysis and
planning of financial operations. There are many reasons for this
development: the emergence of a whole range of new complex financial
instruments, innovations in securitization, the volatility of fixed-income
markets since interest rate deregulation, the increased globalization of the
financial markets, the proliferation of information technolgy, and so on. In
this course, models for hedging, asset allocation, and multi-period portfolio
planning are developed, implemented, and tested. In addition, pricing models
for options, bonds, mortgage-backed securities, and swaps are discussed. The
models typically require the tools of statistics, optimization, and/or
simulation, and they are implemented in spreadsheets or a high-level modeling
environment, MATLAB.
This course is quantitative and will require extensive computer use. The
course is intended for students who have a strong interest in finance.
Prospective students of this course should be comfortable with quantitative
methods, such as basic statistics and the methodologies (mathematical
programming and simulation) taught in OPIM 621 Management Science.
OPIM-654: Product Design Development
The course provides the student with a number of tools and concepts necessary
for creating and managing product development processes.The course consists of
two interwoven parts. First, it presents the basic steps that are necessary
for moving from a "cool idea" to a product sufficiently mature to launch an
entrepreneurial start-up. This includes cases, lectures, and exercises on
topics like identifying customer needs, developing a product concept as well
as effective prototyping strategies. The capstone of this first part is a
real project in which student teams conceptualize and develop a new product or
service up to the completion of a fully functional prototype.
Second, the course discusses a number of challenges related to product
development as encountered by management consultants, members of
cross-functional development teams as well as general managers. We will
analyze cases that examine challenges in managing disruptive technologies,
resource allocation in R&D organizations, organizational forms of product
development teams, and other topics.
OPIM-655: Integrating Marketing and Operations
This course covers topics that span marketing and operations management.
Students will examine issues and decisions that require significant
coordination between managers in marketing and operations. Topics include
channel management, supply chain design, product variety management and
service operations pricing and control. Cross-listed with MKTG 655.
OPIM-656: Operations Strategy
This course examines how organizations can develop and leverage process
management excellence. Two modules comprise this course. In the first half, we
study lean production techniques used in both manufacturing and service
industries. The lean techniques attempt 1) to align production/service
processes with customer needs and 2) to assure continuous improvement of these
processes once designed. We will learn through readings, case studies, a plant
tour and a hands-on simulation of a lean transformation. After learning how to
develop and maintain operations excellence, we turn our attention to utilizing
these capabilities to create an operations strategy in the second half of the
course. In these classes, we examine what constitutes an operations strategy
and how organizations can create value by managing complexity, uncertainty,
and process development. The course is recommended for those interested in
consulting or operations careers, as well as students with an engineering
background who wish to develop a better understanding of managing production
processes. Cross-listed with ESE 522.
OPIM-658: Service Operations Management
The service sector represents the largest segment of most industrial
economies. In the U.S., for example, it accounts for approximately 70% of GDP
and 80% of employment. In addition to this "pure" service sector, the
operations and competitive positions of many manufacturing firms are becoming
increasingly service-oriented.
While operational excellence is critical for success in most industries today,
in a wide range of service industries this is particularly true. For example,
recent, significant deregulation in banking, health care, and communications
has led to intensified competition and pressure on operations. At the same
time, the rapid evolution of information technology has enabled firms to
operate in a fashion - and to offer a level of service - that has not been
previously possible.
Elements common to most services make the management of their operations
complex, however. In particular, services are intangible, not storable or
transportable, and often highly variable. Frequently their delivery involves
distributed operations with a significant amount of customer contact. All of
these factors make service operations end up looking quite a bit different
than manufacturing operations, and the task of achieving excellence in them
requires specialized analysis frameworks and tools.
This course covers a mix of qualitative and quantitative models that provide
the necessary tools. The class will focus on simple models that should help
you to better understand both the difficulty of managing and the underlying
economics of the service operations being considered. You will have the
opportunity to apply these course tools in a group service assessment field
project.
OPIM-660: Information Systems for Managers
The advances achieved in information technologies and systems (IT&S) --
primarily computing and communications systems -- have been, and will continue
to be extraordinary. Consequently, the scope and practical import of IT&S can
hardly be overestimated. "Management Information Systems (MIS) is the practice
of using computer and communication systems to solve problems in
organizations. This course is designed to provide the essential skills and
technology-based insights needed in order to manage effective problem solving
with information technologies and systems (IT&S), and to extract the most
value from an actual or potential information system."
The course is organized around several "hands on" cases or projects, through
which students teams become familiar with important information technologies,
including databases and the Internet.
Students completing this course will have mastered a basic understanding of
information technology, the fundamentals of the use of information technology
in business, and essential information technology survival skills. Cross-listed with ESE 508.
OPIM-661: Systems Analysis, Design, and Implementation
This course is about the problem of designing, developing, and managing large,
complex systems. This problem is regularly faced by nearly all managers and
other professionals throughout their careers. The purpose of the course is
twofold. First, we aim to familiarize students with the issues involved in
conceiving, designing, building, and maintaining the kinds of large-scale,
complex information systems now required for commercial (and governmental)
purposes. Second, we aim to provide students with experience working with the
main tools and techniques in systems analysis, design, and implementation.
Special focus will be given to modern object-oriented design methodologies,
and methodologies appropriate for Internet-based electronic commerce (e.g.,
UML and modern CASE tools). Cross-listed with OPIM 316.
OPIM-662: Enabling Technologies
Conducting business in a networked economy invariably involves interplay with
technology. The purpose of this course is to improve understanding of
technology (what it can or cannot enable), the business drivers of technology-
related decisions in firms, and to stimulate thought on new applications for
commerce (including disruptive technologies). The class is a comprehensive
overview of various emerging technology enablers and culminates in discussion
of potential business impact of these technologies in the near future. Some
technologies covered include Voice over IP (VoIP), WiFi, cellular 3G, search
engines, Peer to Peer Computing, Nanotechnology, etc. For a detailed list,
refer to the course syllabus.
No prior technical background is assumed and hence effort is made to build
most of the lectures from the basics. The course is highly recommended for
students with interest in careers in any of the following areas:
consulting/strategy, venture capital, product management/business development
in the tech sector, and investment banking /financial analysis in a tech
sector. Those with entrepreneurial interests in the tech sector can also
benefit significantly. Cross-listed with OPIM 314.
OPIM-664: Database & Info Management Systems
Data and information are critical to the modern organization. Whether used in
knowledge management, business intelligence, enterprise resource planning
(ERP), product design, marketing, personalization and other aspects of
managing customer relationships (CRM), the underlying principles of data
management are the same. This course aims to provide a practical introduction
to the fundamental principles. Examples and exercises will cover the
relational database tools at the core of ERP, CRM, and on-line exchanges and
portals. However, the course will also use the same basic foundations to
consider emerging technologies and standards such as XML, ebXML, UDDI, etc.
OPIM-665: Operations Management in Health Care
In an era where health care systems around the world face rapidly rising costs
and quality issues, organizations large and small are looking into the
operational side of health care for solutions. Likewise, the abundance of
unfulfilled needs in the health care marketplace has led to an array of
technology ventures with innovative new products and services. In this course,
we apply the tools of operations management to analyze the health care value
chain. The course consists of four modules: (1) the management of
productivity, quality, and variability by care providers, (2) capacity and
investment decisions under uncertainty confronting pharmaceuticals, (3) the
design of health insurance by health plans and the determination of health
benefits by employers, and (4) business ideas and operations models from the
intersection of academic research and technology ventures. Students will learn
from case discussions, hands-on decision tools, and several distinguished
speakers and alumni from Stanford Hospital & Clinics, Merck, U.S. Naval
Academy, and Deloitte Consulting. No prior exposure to the health care
industry is assumed. The course prepares students for several career paths
including consulting, operations management, and health care administration
and is open to both first- and second-year MBA students.
OPIM-666: Information: Industry, Structure, and Comparative Strategy
This course is in the tradition of Operations courses as exercises in the
systematic understanding of complex systems, rather than in the tools and
techniques for understanding aspects of those systems. It draws upon the most
recent experience in the impact of information technology upon diverse
industries, ranging from securities trading to consumer packaged goods
retailing. It integrates that experience with relevant theory to develop an
approach to information-based strategies generally, including resurgent
interest in strategies for Commerce. It is not a tools and techniques course;
likewise it is not a technology or an implementation course. It provides a
focused and modern complement to strategic planning.
The increase in consumer informedness is changing consumer behavior in a wide
range of situations. Customers find the least expensive alternative in
categories of little importance to them, while finding the perfect match with
their wants and needs, cravings and longings, in categories they find
salient. Online trust is a strong determinant of shopping behavior and will
continue to be.
Likewise, the increase in information available to firms, and the increasing
variety of strategies available for the use of information - from dynamic
repricing to online distribution, from labor productivity enhancements to
labor arbitrage and outsourcing - requires a dramatic revision of managerial
mental models of their competitive options. Revising mental models and
enhancing mental agility are both essential to executive leadership, rather
than mere conservation and management, in today's environment of rapid and
discontinuous change in the competitive environment.
The ability to target profitable market segments and to identify individual
customers is reducing the value of scale-based operations and the strategic
advantage of large firms with existing market share. The ability to monitor
the performance of units abroad is leading to greater reliance upon
outsourcing, benefiting many service industries and once again reducing the
advantage of many large firms. At the same time, the impact of information
technology on the transparency and efficiency of securities markets is
destroying the profits of entire segments of financial services. All aspects
of the firm - production, service, sales, marketing, and strategy - will be
affected. Clearly, some firms will win and others will lose; nearly all will
have to change. And yet, fundamental laws of economics have not been
repealed. How can previous economic theory, and previous experience with
rapid technological change, provide insights for the development of strategy
in an increasingly digital age?
OPIM-667: Business Transformation
This course is a direct sequel to OPIM 666 and it addresses strategic problem
solving in the context of business transformation engagements. The course is
intended to prepare students for leadership roles in dynamic and rapidly
evolving industries, and for careers in strategic consulting. I view this as
the most exciting and rewarding aspect of strategic planning and strategic
consulting.
In order to perform strategic transformation, either as a member of the firm's executive team or as an external strategy consultant, it is necessary to address the following questions:
* Understanding the future: What has changed and what will change in
the business environment of the firm? Why is it going to be necessary to
engage in strategic change? What information will be required to function
effectively?
* Future capability assessment: What will the firm need to do in order
to compete in this new environment? What specific actions will be required?
What information will be required to function effectively?
* Current activities audit: What does the firm do now? What changes will be
necessary? What information is currently available?
* Leadership challenges: Who will be adversely affected by those
changes? Who will resist making them? Who will be unable to implement them
for other reasons? How can you facilitate difficult change?
* Information infrastructure: How will information endowment determine
competitive positioning? What information systems will be required for the
firm and its partners? What information capability will be possessed by
customers and competitors?
* Getting started: Determine your value proposition and your pricing.
Thus, while this is a course in Information Strategy and Economics, and while
information endowment is central to our strategic analyses, information
systems and technology together represent only one of the issues that must be
addressed in order to complete strategic business transformation.
Telecommunications technology is changing rapidly, with profound implications
for quality of everyday life and the competitive position of firms in all
industries. Regulators, sociologists, executives and even those responsible
for planning for firms in the telecommunications industry as yet poorly
understand these changes.
This course presents a broad summary of telecommunications including the basics of analog and digital media, long-haul and local data communications technology, and the emerging structure of telephony. It addresses the implications for competitive strategy, both within and outside the telecommunications industry.
The course is recommended for students in strategic management, especially those with an interest in high technology firms, and for students with an interest in the communications industry. No background in technology is required, though an understanding of technology-driven competitive strategy is helpful. Students completing this course will have acquired a basic understanding of the competitive implications of modern telecommunications technology and the implications of this technology for the future structure of commerce.
OPIM-669: Advanced Topics in Information Strategy
This course is devoted to the study of the strategic use of information – the
opportunities presented by and the competitive threats posed by the increasing
availability of information and the widespread availability of low cost
information technology. Specific topics include: pricing and selling
information products, information and markets, electronic financial markets,
search theory and strategies for dealing with search agents, outsourcing and
outsourcing risks, and the economics of information security, piracy and
privacy. No technology background is required, but a general knowledge and
comfort with economic reasoning and technology management is useful. This
course is the capstone for the Information Strategy, Systems and Economics
(ISSE) major.
OPIM-670: Special Topics in Information Systems
OPIM-672: Decision Support Systems
The past few years have seen an explosion in the amount of data collected by
businesses and have witnessed enabling technologies such as database systems,
client-server computing and artificial intelligence reach industrial strength. These trends have spawned a new breed of systems that can support the
extraction of useful information from large quantities of data. Understanding
the power and limitations of these emerging technologies can provide managers
and information systems professionals new approaches to support the task of
solving hard business problems. This course will provide an overview of these
techniques (such as genetic algorithms, neural networks, and decision trees)
and discuss applications such as fraud detection, customer segmentation,
trading, marketing strategies and customer support via cases and real
datasets. Cross-listed with OPIM 410.
OPIM-676: Electronic Markets
This course deals with Electronic Markets and Market structures and the
strategic uses of information within the firm. The course consists of four
related modules on the design and functioning of Business to Business markets,
use of technology to source services from global providers - i.e., outsourcing
of business processes (as opposed to IT), the use of strategic technological
platforms such as CRM and Web Services and the technology-enabled precision
pricing techniques. Further, students are exposed to strategy formulation and
execution in an online market where they compete both against each other and
against (electronic) agents. This course is recommended for students
interested in a career in consulting, strategic management and to students
interested in information technology related professions. The course will be
delivered through a mix of lectures, case discussions and hands-on trading in
virtual markets using different market mechanisms. The course Web cafe will
be used for discussions and responses from instructor and TA. We do not
assume or require any specific technical knowledge.
Workings of electronic markets and market mechanisms and how IT can enable the
formulation of new strategies and empower firms to define new markets in ways
that were not possible until recently. This is an advanced elective that
covers several essential topics in information strategy - IT and market
structure, impact of IT on knowledge-intensive products and services and
creating hybrid markets that span multiple channels. Students will compete in
simulated electronic markets, using different market mechanisms and formulate
information-based strategies. Students will also study how IT has enabled the
globalization of services through the outsourcing of processes (BPO) and how
quasi market structures which combine elements of organization and markets are
emerging in knowledge-intensive service industries.
OPIM-690: Managerial Decision Making
Making decisions, from the trivial to the fundamental, is part of everyday
life of every manager and investor. For the last 30 years psychologists - and
more recently also economists - have studied how people process information
and make decisions. This research program has provided an insightful
understanding how people's decisions deviate from "optimal" ones, and the
consequences of such biases in financial and personal terms. This course is
devoted to understanding the nature, causes, and managerial implications of
these limitations. The material from this couse provides useful insights that will likely improve the student's decision making skills in many different domains. Cross-listed with MGMT 690.
OPIM-691: Negotiations
Negotiation is the art and science of creating good agreements. This course
develops managerial negotiation skills by mixing lectures and practice, using
cases and exercises in which students negotiate with each other. The cases
cover a wide range of problems and settings: one-shot deals between
individuals, repeated negotiations, negotiations over several issues,
negotiations among several parties (both within and between organizations),
and cross-cultural issues. OPIM 691 sections differ from MGMT 691 and Legal
Studies 806 sections in two ways: OPIM 691 covers theoretical aspects of
negotiation (including psychological theories of judgment mistakes negotiators
make) in a bit more depth, and covers fewer legal and dispute resolution
issues. Otherwise the three courses are interchangeable; students can take
only one. Cross-listed with MGMT 691 & LGST 806.
OPIM-692: Business Application Development
This is an IT project course whose main purpose is to provide students
opportunity to participate in team projects leading to the actual development
in prototype form of a significant business application. In offering the
course, we seek to encourage innovative ideas from, and entrepreneurial
activities by, the participating students. We also encourage students to work
with students who are participating in the Wharton Business Plan Competition.
We seek to bring together student project teams and industrial partners. We
expect that many of the projects will produce "investment grade" prototypes,
which could be deployed within an existing organization or may lead to new
startup ventures. Cross-listed with OPIM 392.
OPIM-697: Retail Supply Chain Management
This course is highly recommended for students with an interest in pursuing
careers in:
(1) retailing and retail supply chains;
(2) businesses like banking, consulting, information technology, that provides
services to retail firms;
(3) manufacturing companies (e.g. P&G) that sell their products through retail
firms. Retailing is a huge industry that consistently been an incubator
for new business concepts.
This course will examine how retailers understand their customers' preferences
and respond with appropriate products through effective supply chain
management. Supply chain management is vitally important for retailers and has
been noted as the source of success for many retailers such as Wal-mart and
Home Depot, and as an inhibitor of success for e-tailers as they struggle with
delivery reliability. See M. L. Fisher, A. Raman and A. McClelland, "Rocket
Science Retailing is Coming - Are You Ready?," Harvard Business Review,
July/August 2000 for related research. Cross-listed with OPIM 397.
OPIM-698: Retail Supply Chains: Design and Management
This course will examine how retailers understand their customers’ preferences
and respond with appropriate products through effective supply chain
management. The course class sessions will deal with the following major
themes: 1) linking finance and operations in retailing, 2) what assortment of
products should a retailer carry in each store, 3) optimizing the inventory
carried of each SKU in each store, 4) markdown pricing, 5) store execution and
6) supply chain design. In addition, we will consider a broad range of issues
facing two retailers, Mothers Work and Best Buy, when we are visited by
current and past senior executives from these firms.
The course is highly recommended for students interested in careers in: 1) Retailing and retail supply chains, 2) Businesses like banking, consulting and
information technology that provide services to retail firms, 3) Manufacturing
companies that sell their products through retail firms.Even if you don’t
expect to work for a retailer, this course can be useful to you in two ways.
First, because retailers are such dominant players in many supply chains
today, it is important that the processes they follow be understood by
manufacturers and distributors, or by the consultants and bankers that service
retailers and their suppliers. Second, the problems retailers face (e.g.,
making data accessible, interpreting large amounts of data, reducing lead-
times, eliciting the best efforts from employees, and so forth), are shared by
firms in many other industries. It’s easier to understand these issues
through case studies in retailing because we all experience the industry as
consumers and can readily relate to chronic problems such as stock outs and
markdowns. The course will be highly interactive, using case discussions in
more than half of the classes and including senior retail executives in a
number of the class sessions.
OPIM-699: Advanced Topics
OPIM-761: Risk Analysis and Environmental Management
This course is designed to introduce students to the complexities of making
decisions about threats to human health and the environment when people’s
perceptions of risks and their decision-making processes differ from expert
views. Recognizing the limitations of individuals in processing information
the course explores the role of techniques such as decision analysis, cost-
benefit analysis, risk assessment and risk perception in structuring risk-
management decisions. We will also examine policy tools such as risk
communication, incentive systems, third party inspection, insurance and
regulation in different problem contexts. The problem contexts for studying the interactions between analysis, perceptions, and communication will include
risk-induced stigmatization of products (e.g. alar, British beef), places
(e.g. Love Canal), and technologies (e.g. nuclear power); the siting of
noxious facilities, radon, managing catastrophic risks including those from
terrorism. A course project will enable students to apply the concepts
discussed in the course to a concrete problem. Cross-listed with OPIM 261, BPUB 261, 761, 961, & ESE 567.
OPIM-762: Environmental Sustainability and Value Creation
With the growing globalization of social and economic activities world wide,
environmentalism has become a fundamental component of the new business
playing field (think not just “greening,” but climate, energy, water, toxins,
food, health, land use, supply chains, new manufacturing, service and financial products). A large range of companies, big and small, now out-
compete their competitors by implementing a robust environmental stewardship,
engaging stakeholders (government bodies, NGOs, trade associations, citizen
groups, universities) and making these efforts both measurable and visible.
This course is intended to familiarize students who are not environmental
specialists with relevant facts and analyzes on this recent environmentalism
evolution. What are the key concepts? What is at stake? Who are the key
interested parties? Who is leading the way in reshaping business strategies as
well as public policies? What are the lessons learned from successes and
failures to integrate the environmental component, here and abroad? Also, why
those who want to do good have to develop a robust business model to achieve
that goal, and how to do it?
This course will allow students to: (1) increase their awareness about the
environment as an increasing part of the core business model and day-to-day
operations of many organizations; (2) develop a necessary environmental
blueprint they may carry into other functions in their future career; (3)
think strategically and act entrepreneurially to create value; (4) interact
with practitioners who have a great deal of experience on these issues. A
course project will enable students to work individually or in small groups on
a concrete case of their choice to create value on their own.
Format: Lectures, case studies, videos, class discussion, computer and
possibly virtual-reality games, outside speakers with experience relevant to
the course. This course is one of the mini-electives satisfying the core
requirement.
Experience the launch of a real and exciting new web business in the food sector.
Students will share in the value created by the class, based on their contribution.
Up to five Student Achievement Awards, of $500 each, will be awarded to best
contributors during the course. Free branded t-shirts and books to enrolled
students who complete the course. During the semester enrolled students will
enjoy delicious food as they trial-run the business processes, and support
cancer research.
Course Times: Mondays and Wednesdays, 3pm to 4:30pm.
Students can choose to do:
Business design, development, and promotion, and/or PHP / MySQL web-programming, and/or Graphic / web design.
MBA’s will work with undergraduate teams, with max one MBA per 4-person team.
