OPIM-101: Introduction to the Computer as an Analysis Tool
Computers have become indispensable tools for analyzing business problems; the
demand for problem solving skills has never been greater. In this course, we
will explore a variety of common quantitative modeling problems that arise
frequently in business settings ranging from small start-ups to large multi-nationals and from industrial firms who design and manufacture goods to
service industries such as investment banks. We will discuss how these
problems can be formally modeled and solved with a combination of business
insight and computer-based tools. Key topics that we will cover include
constrained optimization, process modeling, operational analysis, simulation,
and decision theory. Along the way, we will (learn to) use computer-based
tools such as spreadsheets and databases to gather data and execute our
models. Because data gathering and model execution can quickly become
tedious, we will also learn to construct and re-use macros to automate the
repetition and simplify our jobs. The goal is to provide a set of
foundational skills applicable to your upcoming summer as well as to your
future coursework at Wharton while providing an overview of problems and
techniques that characterize the disciplines that comprise Operations and
Information Management.
OPIM-210: Management Information Systems
This course provides a broad-based introduction to strategic use of
information systems focusing on three interrelated themes: technology,
organization, and strategy.While the course provides some basic training in
information technology concepts, the emphasis of the course is thinking about
how information technology can be applied to designing new organizations and
implementing corporate strategy. There are no prerequisites except for a
general interest in both business and technology issues. The course is
suitable for students interested in careers in consulting, technology-oriented
investment banking, as well as students interested in management careers
related to information technology.
OPIM-220: Introduction to OM
This course introduces basic concepts of operations management and application of the same in business practice today. We will examine the theoretical foundations of operations management and how these principles or models can be employed in both tactical and strategic decision making. Topics covered in detail are forecasting techniques, planning under deterministic and uncertain demand, operations planning and scheduling, queuing theory, service operations management, newsvendor models, risk pooling strategies in firms, capacity and revenue management, and supply chain coordination. We will conclude by discussing how supply chains evolve under technological change.
This course is highly recommended for students
• Interested in majoring in operations management.
• Planning their careers in services and supply chains.
• Interested in learning the operations management perspective when consulting
on current business problems.
• Interested in learning how businesses plan their supply chains for a variety of products (For instance, how firms deal with obsolescence due to new emerging
technological innovations in the marketplace).
• Majoring in engineering disciplines to understand operational issues in
designing and producing new products or services.
This is an introductory course that can be followed by other courses in Service
Operations Management, Process management, Retail Supply Chain Management and other graduate and undergraduate elective courses in OPIM for students interested in OM track. Even if you do not plan to major in operations management, this course can be highly useful to you. It provides an overview of theory and practice that provides an additional perspective on
intriguing business challenges and opportunities of the day. Further the underlying theory can be applied in varying business contexts that seem unrelated to operations on the first look. Course will be built on theoretical models, but we will analyze significant amount of business cases and applications that provide supportive structure to the theory developed in the
course. The cases will point out how real world operations problems can be approached, modeled and solved in a scientific way.
OPIM-221: Operations Strategy and Process Management
This course examines how organizations can develop and leverage excellence in
process management. The first module focuses on operations strategy. In
these classes, we examine what constitutes an operations strategy and how
organizations can create value by managing complexity, uncertainty, and
product development. In the second half of the course, we discuss recent
developments in both manufacturing and service industries. Specifically, we
examine initiatives in quality, lean manufacturing and enterprise-wide
planning systems. 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-223: Service Operations Management
OPIM 223 is a ½-semester ½-CU course offered in Quarter 3 (Q3), during the first half of the spring semester. The course is taught using a mix of lectures and cases. The class will focus on (mostly analytical) models that will help you to better understand the underlying economics of many service operations, as well as the specific trade-offs to be made when managing them. The course covers topics in - the design of service-delivery processes - capacity management - demand management We will apply these tools and ideas to examples from service businesses in health care, financial services, transportation, restaurants, hotels and information-based services. For details, as well as questions, please feel free to contact Professor Noah Gans: gans@wharton.upenn.edu.
OPIM-224: Service Operations: Models and Applications
OPIM 224x is a full-semester version of OPIM 223.* Students take OPIM 223 and then apply the material covered in Q3 to a term project in the second half of the spring. Term projects are performed under the close supervision of the instructor, and students pursuing this option receive 1-CU for the semester. For more details, as well as questions, please feel free to contact Professor Noah Gans: gans@wharton.upenn.edu.
OPIM-261: 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 761, BPUB 261, 761, 961, & ESE 567.
OPIM-290: Decision Processes
This course deals primarily with the following three questions:
(1) Out of the unlimited amount of information that surrounds us (people), how
do we filter out and process the few facts needed to make decisions?
On the other hand, how do we fill in the gaps for missing information?
(2) How do we make decisions using these few facts that we manage to pay
attention to?
(3) How can our decision making process be improved based on what we know
about (1) and (2)
We will address these questions combining insights from psychology and
economics. In particular we will concentrate on findings from the field known
as Behavioral Decision Research in Psychology and as Behavioral Economics in
economics. Classes will consist of reviewing multiple studies and class
discussion using standard economics as a frame of reference.
Important Note: This course is not intensive in statistical analysis or
mathematics, contrary to what the (old) description of the course used to
state. This course covers mostly psychology and plenty of economics; it uses
statistics only to understand the results of the studies from economics and
psychology.
OPIM101 is not a prerequisite.
OPIM-291: 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-311: Business Computer Languages
OPIM 311 is designed for you to gain a set of information processing skills
that are in high demand with recruiters. The course will be completely lab-
and project-based and heavily emphasize the acquisition of practical, valuable
skills. In class, which will be held in the computer lab, you will learn about
the role computer programming has in solving business problems—how to
recognize problems that might yield to programming, how to find and acquire
data, how to format data as information, how to store, display, and publish
information so that it becomes a useful tool for tackling business problems.
OPIM-314: 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 662.
OPIM-315: Data Base Management Systems
Organizations continue to increase their reliance on computerized database
management and information retrieval systems. Whether purchasing airplane
tickets, managing retail merchandise, processing financial trades or simply
sending email, data management defines the modern firm. This course aimes to
provide students with both a practical and theoretical introduction to the
design, implementation, and use of such systems. Students are introduced to
the fundamental concepts and principals of data management and gain practical
experience by designing and deploying a working system. Throughout the
course, case studies are used to illustrate theoretical concepts while
acquainting students with innovative commercial uses of these systems.
OPIM-316: Systems Analysis, Design, and Implementation
OPIM 316:
Systems Analysis and Design
Sections 001 and 401
For the Spring 2007 semester the OPIM department is offering two versions of
its OPIM 316 course, Systems Analysis, Design, and Implementation.
The practice of Systems Analysis and Design is routinely undertaken by
managers in all parts of the enterprise, for at bottom it is the art of
thinking clearly and with discipline about how to turn an idea into a software
application or artifact. But projects differ, not only in the immediate
problem they attack, but in fundamental qualitative and quantitative ways,
across a broad spectrum of characterizations. In short, different kinds of
software projects require different kinds of management, management approaches
different enough to be treated in separate sections of a course.
Section 401
Section 401 treats the development of large-scale software systems in which,
as Fred Brooks observes, "The technology, the surrounding organization, and
the traditions of the craft conspire to define certain items of paperwork."
Such projects are characterized by large numbers of team members strugglling
to understand one another across disparate discourse communities and world
views, differences in experience and training, across broad geographic
distances, and over long periods of time. Large-scale projects emphasize the
importance of developing components for reuse, of managing risk, of insuring
that the loss of business and technical talent does not negatively affect the
delivery of its product, and of accurate budget and calendar estimation. More
than anything else, this section of OPIM316 treats communication,
corroboration, and thinking within the boundaries of a large software-
development project as its primary subjects.
In Section 401, we will do systems analysis and design using best practices as
they have evolved for large-scale projects. We will work together in teams to
identify business needs and propose technological solutions that meet those
needs. We will develop budget and calendar estimates for completing our
projects. Within our teams, we will develop various milestone deliverables,
using a number of modeling techniques (including the use of UML) that we will
review together in class, revise, and finally deliver as a complete design
product for our proposed systems. Along the way, we will review the historical
development of current best practices and how these have been informed by
empirical studies, with special emphasis on formal process evaluation and
testimation models developed at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie
Mellon and the Center for Systems and Software Engineering at the University
of Southern California. And we will review new alternatives to the tradition
as represented in the philosophies of open-source software development and
emerging Agile methodologies. Cross-listed with OPIM 661.
OPIM-319: Advanced Decision Systems: Agents, Games, and Evolution
This course is taught with the more descriptive title of "Agents,
Games and Evolution." It explores applications and fundamentals of
strategic behavior. Strategic, or game-theoretic, topics
arise throughout the social sciences. The topics include---and we
discuss---trust, cooperation, market-related phenomena
(including price equilibria and distribution of wealth), norms,
conventions, commitment, coalition formation, and negotiation. They
also include such applied matters as design of logistics systems,
auctions, and markets generally (for example, markets for electric
power generation).
In addressing these topics we focus on the practical problem of
finding effective strategies for agents in strategic situations (or
games). Our method of exploration will be experimental: we review and
discuss experiments, principally computational experiments, on the
behavior of boundedly rational agents in strategic (or game-theoretic)
situations. Course work includes readings, discussions in class
(organized as a seminar), examinations, and a course project on a
topic chosen by the participants.
OPIM-321: Introduction to Management Science
Decision making is becoming increasingly quantitative; hence the use and abuse
of quantitative techniques is an important concern of management. Emphasis in
this course is placed on understanding the formulation, analysis, and
implementation of management science tools for a broad range of managerial
decision problems. Topics covered include mathematical programming, decision
making under uncertainty, and simulation. This course is concerned with
methodological issues relating to the design and control of operations.
OPIM-325: Computer Simulation Models: Metaheuristics and Management Science (MandMS)
OPIM 325, "Metaheuristics and Management Science," is being offered in spring
2008 for the first time after being extensively revised.
The course may be framed in this way. An optimizing procedure is one that is
guaranteed to find a best possible solution to a problem. A (good) heuristic
procedure is one that with high reliability finds very good solutions to a
problem. As you might expect, optimizing procedures are often prohibitively
expensive or even unavailable, forcing us to use heustic procedures. In
addition, heuristic procedures are often more informative and useful than
optimizations. So the range and scope of heuristic procedures is vastly larger
than that for optimizing procedures.
Oddly enough, curricular attention to optimizing procedures is much more
extensive than attention to heurstics. This course aims to redress the
imbalance. We will spend about half of the course on evolutionary computation
(e.g., genetic algorithms) and other heuristics for constrained optimization.
And about half the course will focus on agent-based modeling, and its uses in
management science and indeed in the social sciences generally. Our
implementation environment will be NetLogo, which is not only free, but has
been found to be fun by very many students.
The primary focus of the course is on understanding, designing, and analyzing
simulation models. Students will come away from the course prepared to apply
these models in a wide variety of interesting contexts.
This course focuses on: (1) modern simulation-based metaheuristics for
problems in management science, and on (2) agent-based simulation models in
the social sciences, especially in economic, in commercial and in strategic
(game-theoretic) contexts. On the metaheuristic (class of heuristic) side, we
focus on evolutionary computation, including genetic algorithms, as applied to
constrained optimization problems, which are so prevalent in business practice.
Regarding (2), agent-based models are a relatively recent and now
rapidly-developing form of computer simulation that seek to explain and predict
complex social phenomena "from the ground up", through interactions of
comparatively simple agents. The course reviews experimental and theoretical
results, and exposes the students to modern development environments for, as
well as successful applications of, this form of simulation.
A modest amount of programming (in modern scripting languages) is expected of
students. All required programming knowledge will be covered, and covered
gently, in the course. The class can be taken by students without prior
programming experience, although having some would be helpful.
OPIM-392: 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 692.
OPIM-397: 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.
4. Retailing is a huge industry that has consistently been an incubator for
new business concepts. This course exams 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. Cross-listed with OPIM 697.
OPIM-398: 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.
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.
Students can choose to do:
PHP / MySQL programming, and/or
Graphic / web design, and/or
Business design, development, and promotion
Students who choose PHP / MySQL programming will learn how to:
Create, populate, and query a database Build dynamic, database-driven web-
pages Gather and process data off the internet and from documents. Earn revenues from PayPal, Google AdWords, Google Checkout, and other sources
OPIM-410: 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 672.
OPIM-415: Product Design
This course provides tools and methods for creating new products. The course
is intended for students with a strong career interest in new product
development , entrepreneurship, and/or technology development. The course
follows an overall product design methodology, including the identification of
customer needs, generation of product concepts, prototyping, and design-for-
manufacturing. Weekly student assignments are focused on the design of a new
product and culminate in the creation of a prototype. The course is open to
juniors and seniors in SEAS or Wharton. Cross-listed with MEAM 415 & 515.
OPIM-469: Information Strategy and Economics
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.
