California State University, Northridge
College of Business and Economics
Department of Systems and Operations Management
SOM 306 Operations Management, Fall 2015
Monday Aug. 24, 2015- Tuesday Dec. 8, 2015
Finals are scheduled forDec 9-15- Please check Solar
Dr. Ardavan Asef-Vaziri
Office: JH 4129, Tel: 818-677-3637
Office hours: MW 10:45-11:45, W 5.30-6.30, and by appointment
Count what is countable.
Measure what is measurable.
What is not measurable, make it measurable.
Galileo Galilei, 1564 -1642.
Prerequisites. To enroll in SOM 306, the student must have passed SOM 120 (or an equivalent statistics course at another institution) with a grade of “C” or higher. Alternatively, the student must have passed both, Math 140 and Math 103 courses. Students, who have not passed the prerequisites, are under the risk of receiving an F as their final grade. It is your responsibility to make sure that you have passed all necessary prerequisites.
Operations Management. Operations, Marketing, and Finance are the three primary functions of business organizations. Operations management focuses on how managers can design and operate processes in business settings with discrete flow units. Examples include the flow of cars in a GM assembly plant, flow of customers in a Wells Fargo branch, flow of patients at the UCLA Medical Center, flow of cash in Fidelity Investments, and flow of students during their program at CSUN. In all these systems in, Inputs (natural resources, semi-finished goods, products, customers, patients, students, and cash) in form of Flow Units flow through a set of Processes (formed by a network of Activities and Buffers) using Human Resources and Capital Resources (such as equipment, buildings, tools) to become a desired Outputs. The reason for the being of operations management is structuring (designing), managing, and improving processes to achieve the desired output as defined in a four-dimensional space of quality, cost, time, and variety.
Making a factory [or the service system] operate for the company just like the human body operates for the individual. The autonomic nervous system responds even when we are asleep. The human body functions in good health when it is properly cared for, fed and watered correctly, exercised frequently, and treated with respect.
Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production System.
SOM 306 is an introductory course into operations management. The goal is to acquaint the students in Business Administration and Economics with the scope of this field. During this semester you will be introduced to classic and contemporary terminology, concepts, ideas, models, techniques and tools in design and operations of manufacturing and service enterprises. Operations management techniques, such as short term and long term forecasting, process flow analysis, waiting line analysis, capacity planning, throughput improvement, flow time reduction, inventory management, linear programming, aggregate planning, quality management, and lean operations are introduced. These techniques are integrated on the basis of analysis, design, and management of process flows in environments, such as production and assembly plants, supply chains, healthcare systems, educational institutes, and financial enterprises. You will gain a knowledge that will enable you to perform qualitative analysis of basic operational situations and decisions. Also, you will have a chance to improve your quantitative and analytical capabilities in general.
Specific Features of the Course. One of the most binding constraints of business school students – from when they are admitted to college as raw material from high school to when they graduate and leave college as the final product – is their low quantitative and analytical skills. According to the CEO of American Express in his 2011 interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, the low level of quantitative capabilities of our graduates has kept us from excelling beyond the graduates of rising countries such as China and India. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Skills Outlook (2013) compares the literacy, mathematics and computer skills of U.S. residents with other OECD countries. In mathematics, U.S. trailed 18 countries and beat only Italy and Spain.
Believing that managers cannot go far if their quantitative and analytical capabilities are below a threshold, we have tried to improve these qualifications through our Operations Management (OM) classroom. In a typical traditional OM class, about 2/3 of the class time is spent on delivering the content. The rest is mainly spent on problem solving and also on case studies, term projects, and simulation games. We have tried to improve these capabilities through flipping our Operations Management classroom. By delivering the lectures using screen capture technology, the students can learn the material at a time and location of their choice, when they are in control to pause, rewind, and fast forward the professor. The class time is no longer spent on teaching basic concepts, but rather on more value-added activities such as problem solving, answering questions, creative-thinking, systems-thinking, as well as real world applications and discussions, potential collaborative exercises such as case studies, and virtual world applications such as web-based simulation games. A flipped classroom is an online course because its online components must compete with the best of the online courses. A flipped classroom is also a traditional course because not even a single class session is cancelled while all the lectures are delivered online. This core concept is reinforced by a network of resources and learning processes, ensuring a smooth, lean, and synchronized course delivery system.
The specific features of the course and their relative importance are depicted below.
Quantitative and Analytical. We use Operations Management as a tool to improve the quantitative and analytical capabilities of our students. You will learn to develop a structured, data-driven, analytical, and quantitative approach to discuss the core Operations Management concepts.
Systems Thinking. We try to improve systems thinking capabilities of our students by teaching them the basic concepts of operations management not as isolated islands, but as a total system designed towards improving process flow. You will learn to implement the process view as the unifying paradigm to study the core concepts in the operations management.
Visualization of Data and Information. Besides quantitative representation (translating long writings into mathematical relationships), you will have a chance to practice tabular representation (translating long writings into tables) and schematic representation (translating several pages of writing and tables into a graph, flow chart, or picture). Also, you will exercise how to deal with large, unorganized, or erroneous big data sets.
Information Technology. We try to enhance the knowledge of the students in spreadsheet modeling. We have learned that understanding the knowledge behind these models and developing small pilot spreadsheets leads to a better understanding of the course material. Through case studies, as well as web-based games, the stage is set to motivate the students to develop spreadsheet-based models.
Teamwork. We encourage collaborative learning and creative thinking. The first day of the class is not spent on the syllabus, but rather on the importance of teamwork and collaborative learning. I highly encourage you to have weekly team meetings to go over the already solved assignments, and gain new insights in the web-based games and case studies.
Interdisciplinary. We address interfaces of Operations Management with Accounting, Finance, Economics, and Management concepts through case studies.
Learning Goals. There will be two games and several learning goal specific problems in the exams to enable the college to assess your knowledge in the following areas: (a) To provide definitions or short explanations of concepts and issues related to the area of operations management. (b) To be familiar with a basic set of standard operation problems. (c) To interpret quantitative analysis of various operational problems and present the results to management.
Text Book. There is no mandatory text book for this course. It is up to you to buy a new book, old book, or ebook, or rent a new book or used book, or do nothing.
Recommended (Not Mandatory) Text Book
Managing Business Process Flows, 3rd Ed. 2012. Anupindi, Chopra, Deshmukh, Van Mieghem, and Zemel. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-13-603637
Building Lean Supply Chains with the Theory of Constraints. 2012. Srinivasan. McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 978-0-07-177121-4. This book also has a Kindle edition available on the Amazon web site.
Supply Chain management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation. 5th edition, 2010. Chopra and Meindl. PEARSON Prentice Hall. Print ISBN: 978-0-13-274395-2 eText ISBN:
Introduction to Management Science. 5th edition, 2014. Hillier and Hillier. Mc Graw-Hill ISBN: 0078024064. eBook is available through CourseSmart (www.coursesmart.com). The eBook ISBN is 978-0-07-749893-1.
The books do not replace the teaching material covered during the semester. Nothing will replace (i) Listening to the recordings and reading the lectures, and printing the PowerPoint lectures before coming to class. (ii) Completing the assignments before coming to class. (iii) Coming to class and being on time, not leaving the class early, remaining focused in class, and writing the required notes.
Composition of marks:
Simulation Games ...... 15%
Quizzes ...... 25%
Mid-term Exam ...... 25%
Final ...... 35%
Class Participation. Please post a clear photo of your face on Moodle by the end of the first week. If you have specific concerns regarding posting your photo that is fine, just come to me to discuss it. It is up to you to come to class or not. However, if you come to class you cannot damage the learning environment. What do we partially mean by creating a learning environment? During the last two semesters, I have had innumerous complaints from the students regarding continuous whispering of other students at their side. When you talk during my lectures (a) you cannot follow the material, (b) Dr. Asef loses his concentration, and more importantly, (c) you do not allow your classmates to follow and understand the material discussed. In order to get 100% of the class participation mark, please do not disturb the learning environment by creating background noise. Sending text messages and surfing unrelated sites are other examples of disturbing the learning environment. All students are expected to turn off their cell phones during class sessions and not have the cell phone at their approach but in a backpack or in a not easily approachable pocket. The only exceptions are (i) unexpected emergencies or (ii) using the cell phone for teaching material. In both cases the student must inform Dr. Asef in advance. Students are expected to use their laptops and tablets strictly for presentation slides or computations. Any other utilization is considered as interruption in the learning environment. Thank you for helping us to create an efficient learning environment. Please come to class, be on time, do not leave the class early, and remain focused in class. Being focused in class, reading the PowerPoint slides, and solving the assignments play the most important role in your success in SOM 306. If you intend to leave the class early, you need to leave a note at the beginning of class and explain the reason.
I encourage all students to go into State 0 at least one minute before the class starts. State 0 means absolute meditation mode. Born in Moscow in 1863, Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavsky had a more profound effect on the process of acting than anyone else in the twentieth century. It was his assertion that if the theater was going to be meaningful it needed to move beyond the external representation that acting had primarily been. Over forty years he created an approach that fore fronted the psychological and emotional aspects of acting. The Stanislavsky System, or "the method," as it has become known, held that an actor’s main responsibility was to be believed (rather than recognized or understand). Today in the United States, Stanislavsky’s theories are the primary source of study for many actors. Among the many great actors and teachers to use his work are Marlon Brando and Gregory Peck. Many artists have continued experimentation with Stanislavsky’s ideas. Among the best known of these proponents is the Actors Studio, an organization that has been home to some of the most talented and successful actors of our time. Stanislavsky saw that the difference between the good actor and the great actor was the ability to be relaxed, and to be private in public. We learn from Stanislavsky: As the students relax before the lecture starts; they clean the slate, going to a zero state, being ready for the best performance in the learning process.
Quizzes. Our flipped classroom needs to be (1) smooth (the work-load is uniformly spread over the semester due to well-paced lecture captures), (2) lean (the students do not have the opportunity to postpone watching the lectures due to after-lecture-before-class quizzes ), and (3) synchronized (online resources facilitate learning processes and live face-to-face in-class problem solving and troubleshooting reinforce the online material). I have prepared screen captures of the lectures using software such as Camtacia Studio. Each student can learn the basic concepts at flexible times fitting his/her schedule. If students do not know the basic concepts streamlined through screen captures, there will be no basis for active problem solving, trouble shooting, creative-thinking thinking, and real world applications in our face-to-face class times. So, my recorded lectures will give you a chance to learn the basic concepts via screen captures at a time that best fits your schedule, and when you are focused. Then, take a simple online quiz (on Moodle) to assess whether you have listened and understood the lectures. Next, you need to start solving the assigned problems. When you come to class after going through these simple steps, you will be in an excellent position to overcome you weaknesses throughout the class discussion. In a quantitative and analytical course, it is the problem solving and profound face-to-face discussions, rather than delivering the basic concepts, which requires presence of the teacher. After class discussions, you will take another online quiz on Moodle, but this time more advanced. Comparing the performance of the students on simple quizzes after listening to lectures with that of the more advanced quizzes after class discussion provides basis for assessment. Group discussions on the lecture material, as well as on the solved assignments, are very beneficial. Nevertheless, quizzes are individual tasks and any type of collaboration on the quizzes is prohibited. Usually, you have 20-50 minutes to take the quizzes. Time window for the most of the quizzes is from 9:30 am on Thursday to 9:30 pm on Sunday of the same week.