PROJECT & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

BBUS 340 FALL 1998

Professor: P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan CLASS: Mon./Wed

OFFICE: Room 210 Section A: 1:15 - 3:20 p.m.

Email: sundar@u.washington.edu PHONE: 352 - 5384

REQUIRED TEXTS:

1. Productions Operations Management, by William J. Stevenson [T]

2. The Machine that Changed the World, Womack, Jones & Roos [WJR]

3. The Goal, E. Goldratt & J. Cox [On Reserve in Library]

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Over the past twenty five years many firms have learned the painful lesson that neglect of the operations function can be extremely hazardous to the health of the organization. On the other hand, international firms that have demonstrated that operations management can be an effective competitive weapon, in conjunction with well-conceived marketing and financial plans, have made major penetrations into markets worldwide.

This course is designed to address the key operations and project management issues in service and manufacturing organizations that have strategic as well as tactical implications. The specific objectives include:

  1. To understand the role of operations management in the overall business strategy of the firm.
  2. To identify and evaluate the key factors and the interdependence of these factors in the design of effective operating systems.
  3. To identify and evaluate a range of tools appropriate for analysis of operating systems of the firms.
  4. To understand the applications of operations management policies and techniques to service sector as well as manufacturing firms.

EVALUATION

As every class is different, the exact weighting of the different components will depend upon the performance of the class. Your course grade will be determined in the following way:

Individual Exams (2)

50%

In-Class Participation, Exercises

5%

Memos (2)

3%

Group Projects:

HW Cases (2 or 3)

12%

WJR Presentation

6%

Research Article Presentation

12%

Final Case

12%

In addition, you may be able to take advantage of other opportunities presented to you by the Professor to get Bonus Points.

General Policies:

  1. Your role, in this class, is that of a management consultant turning in a document to the client (i.e., the instructor).
  2. Consequently, all reports, HW Cases, etc. that are submitted to the instructor must of be of the highest professional quality and "client/reader friendly".
  1. Any work turned in must indicate on the Title page the Section; group number; names of the participating individuals, and their signatures.
  2. Email is the preferred mode of communication in this class. Please check it regularly for messages from either myself or your group members.
  3. No make-up work or exams will be granted (unless required for medical reasons, in which case a note from a physician is required). You should make arrangements now to avoid time conflicts.
  4. A picture card (3x5) must be turned in by the second class session. As class participation grades will be recorded on this, your grades will start to be recorded only from the time you turn this in to the instructor.

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH:

In addition to the formal lecture, the sessions are designed to promote student participation through the discussion of current events in the business world as they relate to operations management and in class analysis.

  1. To this end, you are expected to read up on current happenings in the arena of manufacturing, operations, and project management as well as the required Texts and attempt to relate this to the topics being discussed. You should make it a practice to start reading and subscribing to professional journals, papers, and magazines.
  2. You will also be asked to participate, on a fairly regular basis, in various games, discussions, and problems-solving exercises. These are intended to illustrate and should help bring to life some of the more theoretical concepts that will be studying. You are expected to a be a full fledged participant.
  3. You should make it a practice to bring your calculator along with you to class.

CLASS PARTICIPATION

EXAMINATIONS

There will be two closed book, closed notes examinations in this course. Each student must bring their own calculators because the sharing of calculators is strictly prohibited.

All work on the exams must be that of the individual student.

You will need the following materials: a "bubble sheet", pencil, calculator and a blue book for scratch work.

PROJECTS & ASSIGNMENTS

There will be:

  1. One minor group presentation project (from the WJR Book).
  2. Two major group projects –
  1. There will be 2 or 3 Homework Assignments (i.e., Cases) that will be graded. The exact number of the homework cases assigned will depend on the quality of the class participation.
  2. In addition, each individual is required to submit two Learning Achievement Memos. Each of these candid self-evaluations will be limited to a maximum of 3 pages. The first one will be due after the mid-term and the other prior to the final.

Please form groups of the stated number of people, at the latest, by the end of the second class. You will be part of the SAME group for all projects and cases.

For the Minor Group Project you will be asked to make a presentation on specific material from the WJR book. Each group will be limited to 17 minutes of presentation time. Each member of the group must have at least 1 minute of "air time".

For the Major (Research Presentation) Group Project, you will be expected to choose a focal article based on a list of topics or theme selected by the instructor for a substantial presentation. A short list of possible interesting topics is attached to this (but you should feel free to pick a topic that is relevant and interesting to your group based on consultation with the Instructor). You will conduct an in-depth research on this topic and make a 20-25 minute presentation.

In addition, you are required to submit an Executive Memo (2 pages in a reasonable font) distilling the major aspects of your presentation. The Appendix to this Executive Memo must contain, at least, the PowerPoint file (on a disk) that you employed in your presentation, and a copy of the specific focal article presented.

You need to confirm the specific article with me at least 4 weeks before the presentation.

For the second Major Group Project, you will be assigned a case to be analyzed employing the concepts learned from the required set of texts and in-class lectures.

 

The following factors will be taken into consideration when grading all reports, case analyses and papers:

Correctness of the Analysis;

Thoughtfulness of the discussion;

and thoroughness of the discussion;

Spelling and grammatical errors;

Structure and organization of the paper including:

Clarity of the writing;

Style of presentation.

SAMPLE OF POSSIBLE RESEARCH TOPICS

The Research Theme for this Class is New Product Development & Marketing.

Quality Function Deployment

New Product Marketing

Concept Generation

Concept Testing

Innovation Diffusion Theory

Diffusion Models

New Product Forecasting Models

Service Quality

Waiting Line Management

Marketing/Manufacturing Interface

Project Management

Optimal Product Design

Time-based Competition

TIP: An excellent presentation will examine the topic in much greater depth. A more superficial treatment of a topic will not be evaluated as highly. To this end, I recommend that you choose articles from the high quality Journals such as Management Science rather than relying on popular press magazines for your focal article.

Tentative Schedule
  1. 9/28 Course Introduction and Overview Read: Chapter 1, 2 [T]

    2. HW: Form Groups

  2. 9/30 Decision Trees Read: Supplement 2 [T]

    3.  

  3. 10/5 Quality Management I Read Chapter 9, 11 [T].

    4. Read: The Goal [Library]

     

  4. 10/7 Quality Management II CASE: Taguchi Airplane

    5.  

  5. 10/12 Quality Management III Read: Chapter 10 [T].

    6. Statistical Process Control

     

  6. 10/14 Project Management Read: Chapter 18 [T]

    7.  

  7. 10/19 Process Design Read Chapter 4, 5 [T]

    8.  

  8. 10/21 Video:

    9.  

  9. 10/26 EXAM I L.A. Memo 1 Due

    10.  

  10. 10/28 Forecasting Read Chapter 3 [T]

    11. Read: The Goal

  11. 11/2 The Origin of Lean Production Chapters 1-5 [WJR]

    12.  

  12. 11/4 The Origin of Lean Production Chapters 6-10 [WJR]

    13. Deadline to Confirm: Focal Article for Major Presentation

  13. 11/9 Location Analysis Read: Chapter 8.

    14. Transportation method Supplement 8 [T]

     

  14. 11/11 Holiday
  15. 11/16 Capacity Management I Read: Chapter 5, 12 [T]

    16.  

  16. 11/18 Capacity Management II Read: Supplement 7,

    17. Learning Curves, Queuing Theory Chptr. 19 [T]

     

  17. 11/23 Inventory Management Read: [T] Chapter 13, 14

    18.  

  18. 11/25 Scheduling Read: Chapter 17 [T]

    19. Finish Reading: The Goal

  19. 11/30 Group Project Presentations

    20.  

  20. 12/2 Group Project Presentations Due: Project Executive Memo,

    21. & L.A. Memo 2

     

  21. 12/7 Work on Final Case

    22.  

  22. 12/9 EXAM II Due: Project CASE Report

 

C:\DOCS\WinWord\UWSYLABI\POM 340 Syllabus.doc

About the Instructor

P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan obtained his Ph.D. in Marketing from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1988. He also has an undergraduate degree in Engineering from I.I.T., a Masters’ degree from The Wharton School, and another Masters’ in Industrial Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington

He is one of the founding faculty of the Business Administration Program of the University of Washington, Bothell where he currently serves as an Associate Professor. He was previously an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business at The Ohio State University.

The substantive areas of Prof. Balakrishnan’s research are directed toward studying Buyer-Seller Negotiations in the area of Industrial Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Retail Locational Decisions, Product Management & Strategy. Sundar’s research interests from a methodological standpoint are in working with innovative Artificial Intelligence methodologies such as, Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms and developing Decision Support Systems for addressing business problems. He is the developer of NEGOTIAT, a negotiation training simulator, and the co-developer of GENESYS and GENELIN software for product designs.

His research papers have appeared in Management Science, Psychometrika, Journal of Consumer Research, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Direct Marketing, and the European Journal of Operational Research among others. He has presented his research at numerous conferences nationally and internationally. He also serves as a reviewer for many of the leading journals such as the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing and the Journal of Marketing Research. He is a member of the American Marketing Association, INFORMS, and International Association of Conflict Management.

Prof. Balakrishnan has taught a number of different courses including Marketing Research, Business Marketing, Project & Operations Management and has developed new, innovative courses including Marketing Management Laboratory and Artificial Intelligence and Marketing Decision Support Systems.

He was identifed as one of the Top 300 most prolific management scholars in a 1997 INFORMS survey based on publications over the past 10 years. He has also been listed in various editions of MARQUIS’ Who’s Who. He has taught courses and students at all levels ranging from Undergraduates to Graduates. He has also taught in Executive Education programs in the United States, India, and Japan. His recognitions for teaching excellence include being nominated twice for the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award and being awarded the Business Instructor of the Year by the UWB Business students.