Operations Management Models

Catalog description

An organization's operations consists of the processes it uses to produce, distribute, and sell goods and services. This seminar focuses on mathematical modeling of operating systems to best understand how to design, manage, and improve them. Areas of application will vary by year, will typically include models of manufacturing, retailing, services, supply chains, and social responsibility and sustainability. This course is intended for doctoral students in operations management and other related disciplines who will produce and/or consume modeling research in OM. Other students, e.g., master's, etc., may take the course only with the permission of the professor. Basic familiarity with operations research and economics is assumed. A background in game theory and inventory theory (BA 982) are useful, but not required. The course focuses more on the application of these 2 methodologies in different operational contexts than on the development of the methodologies themselves. For students who do not have a background in the relevant methodologies we will employ, we will briefly introduce them as necessary throughout the course, but this is not a substitute for formal courses on these topics.