University of Southern Maine: School of Business

We prepare and inspire current and future leaders, and stimulate economic growth by providing quality learning
opportunities, valuable research and professional service, all in partnership with the business community.

MBA 675: Production and Operations Management (CRN P8608)

Class Meetings: Wednesday 4:10 - 6:55 p.m. - room 303 Luther Bonney Hall
Prerequisites: MBA-508
Fall, 2006

Instructor: Jack Jensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Management Science

Office Location: 118 Bedford St., Room 206 (2nd floor).
Phone: 780-4854 E-mail: jbjensen@usm.maine.edu
Office Hours: Monday 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. Wednesday 3:00-4:00 and by appointment
Web Address: http://www.usm.maine.edu/~jjensen

TEXTBOOKS AND MATERIALS

Text: Matching Supply with Demand, (2nd ed), Cachon and Terwiesch; McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2004.
Software: WinQSB Yih-Long Chang. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1998. Visual SLAM and AweSim Alan B.
Pritsker, Symix Systems, Inc.; 1999. (student version provided by instructor - on web site)
Notes: Provided by instructor

COURSE INTRODUCTION

Production and Operations Management probes the underlying behavior of manufacturing transformation systems.
This course moves beyond description of Just-in-Time, Material Requirements Planning and Economic Order
Quantity models to investigate the influence of factory dynamics and variability on flow, quality, capacity and
utilization. The course extends lessons learned from the tangible transformation world of the manufacturer to the
transformation of intangibles associated with service providers.

The focus of Production and Operations Management, is to help you become a more effective manager or accounting
professional. Not intending to make you an operations expert, this course provides an overview of the most
important operational issues faced by service providers and manufacturers. As we shall see, decisions related to the
supply of goods and services greatly influence the long term competitiveness of an organization. Furthermore,
decisions made throughout the organization have an enormous impact on the capability of operations. Thus, it is vital
for business professionals to understand how marketing decisions, finance decisions, management decisions,
accounting decisions, and so on can promote or retard a company’s ability to serve its customers and thereby make a
profit. Additionally, this course will acquaint students with the tools and techniques used by operations decision
makers. The intent is to provide you with an environment rich in analysis needs, acquaint you with the vocabulary
of operations, and give you time to explore the advantages and limitations of procedures and systems used within the
operations function.

Upon successful completion of this course each student will have demonstrated their ability to articulate operational
issues and to apply the techniques presented. Specific objectives include:

Analytical and critical thinking: This course will strengthen your ability to address complex open-ended
problems by the creative use of scientific decision-making methodology

Quantitative analysis: This course will strengthen your ability to employ (select, test and apply)
sophisticated statistical and quantitative modeling principles, tools, and perspectives to address complexity
in operations management.

Computer usage and information acquisition: This course will strengthen your ability to make proper
use of software in data acquisition, organization, and analysis activities and decision-making processes.

Oral and written communication: You will make effective use of oral communication (listening and
speaking) and written communication (words, symbols, and graphs) to receive and transmit information.
 Ethical issues: We will be involved in building valid, bias-free models and interpreting modeling results in
a proper ethical context. Dealing with ethical issues around take-home exercises.

Date TOPICAL COVERAGE AND TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

9/06/06 Topic 1: Introduction (Chapter 1) Introduction to AweSim! and Slam II

Learning objectives Using the software
Improvement framework Basic modeling nodes and arcs

Topic 2: The Process View (Chapter 2) AweSim! and Slam II continues

Measures of process performance Additional nodes and arcs
9/13/06 Little’s law Variables, expressions and equations
Inventory basics Introduction to control statements
The product process matrix
Process charts and flow diagrams

Topic 3: Process Design (Chapter 3) Intermediate modeling components

Flow rates and bottlenecks Modeling resources
9/20/06
Utilization and workload The ASSERT function
Deterministic process line
Best and worst case performance

Topic 4: Reducing Labor Costs (Chapter 4) Intermediate modeling components II

9/27/06 Analyzing assembly operations Grouping and Altering resources
Line balancing Gates
Three forms of process layouts Accumulating and batching

Topic 5: Batching and Setups (Chapter 5)

Setups and batching
10/4/06
Batching and inventory
The economic order quantity model
Alterations of the EOQ

Topic 6: Process Simulation

Priority setting
Observational and time persistent statistics
10/11/06
Using arrays
Matching and selecting
Data collection and writing output
Design of experiments

Topic 7: Process Variability and Waiting (Chapter 6)

Sources of variability
Analyzing an arrival process
10/18/06 Service time variability
Models for waiting: 1 server
Models for waiting: parallel servers
Practical worst case line performance
Internal benchmark example

10/25/06 Group meetings - Preliminary group reports prepared

 Topic 8: Variability and Throughput (Chapter 7) Cellular manufacturing
Throughput loss and pooling synergy
Resources in sequence (This topic is related to
11/01/06 Natural variability material in Chapter 12 section 4)
Downtime variability
Setup variability
Propagation of variability along a line

Topic 9: Quality and the Toyota System (Chapter 8)

Quality costs
Statistical process control
11/08/06 Control charts
Six sigma analysis
Acceptance sampling
Just in time implementation

Topic 10: Uncertain Demand (Chapter 9 & 10)

Forecasting demand
11/15/06
Newsvendor model
Performance measures

11/22/06 Thanksgiving Break

Topic 11: Supply Chains (Chapter 11 & 14) Inventory Analysis and Simulation
Order up to model Simulation of P and Q systems
11/29/06 The EOQ under stochastic conditions Simulation of relaxed assumptions
and Demand distributions Linear Programming
12/06/06 Performance measures Supply chain modeling
Service levels Aggregate plan modeling
Aggregate planning

Topic 12: Coordination

Master production scheduling
Rough cut capacity planning
12/13/06
Material requirements planning
Lot sizing
Capacity requirements planning

12/20/06 Group discussions - Final projects due

POLICIES

Students with Disabilities

If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, if you encounter
difficulty with the course, or feel you could be performing at a higher level, consult with me as
soon as possible. For problems with writing skills or time management, make an appointment to
see a student tutor at: The Learning Center, Luther Bonney Hall, second floor (780-4228). Help is
also available through the Counseling Center, 105 Payson Smith Hall, (780-4050) and the Office
of Academic Support for Students with Disabilities, Luther Bonney Hall, second floor (780-4706).

Schedule Changes (USM policy as provided in the catalog)

"Once a semester commences, a period of one week is permitted to add or drop courses. Adds
require the signature of the instructor, but drops should be completed with the Registrar without a
signature. A student dropping a course after the first week through the eighth week of classes will
receive the grade notation of W. If a student has not officially withdrawn by the end of the eighth
week of the course, he or she will be assigned a regular grade, normally F."

Grade of Incomplete (USM policy as provided in the catalog)

" .. a temporary grade given when the student, because of extraordinary circumstances, has failed
to complete the course requirements. Incompletes must be resolved by the end of each subsequent
semester .."

Attendance
Class attendance will not be recorded but is strongly encouraged. Much of the subject matter
covered in class is not treated in other course materials. Additionally, written assignments will
often be collected the class following assignment.

Homework
Reading assignments and written problems will be given regularly. You are expected to complete
all assignments on time. Written assignments will be periodically collected for evaluation.

Academic Integrity (USM policy)

"... Any breach of academic integrity represents a serious offense." "... Violations of student
academic integrity include any actions which attempt to promote or enhance the academic standing
of any student by dishonest means. Cheating on an examination, stealing the words or ideas of
another (e.g. plagiarism), making statements which are known to be false or misleading, falsifying
the results of one's research, improperly using library materials or computer files, or altering or
forging academic records are examples of violations of this policy... "

Grade Determination

Components of Course Grades

Collected homework and written cases 70%

Application project: see following description 30%

Distribution of Final Letter Grades: per graduate catalog

TEAM APPLICATION PROJECT

Working in partnership with a local organization, apply a management science tool, methodology or
concept to an operations problem or question. The organization may be the firm at which you work as long
as you have a contact person who is willing to work with you and provide feedback.

1. The project may be taken from a team member’s experience.

2. An objective and a study hypothesis is strongly encouraged.

Objective example: This project will investigate the effective assignment of

clerical tasks to office workers.

Hypothesis example: When tasks are grouped by type and assigned in batches, the
average number of tasks performed statistically significantly
increases.

3. Where possible, data collection should justify any important model parameters used.

For example: If an exponential customer arrival rate is assumed, supporting data or

some other form of convincing argument should be supplied.

An initial declaration of project must be turned in by October 4, 2006

a. Team members
b. Company and contact person
c. Project description (one paragraph)

A project update must be turned in by November 1, 2006

a. Methodology
b. Initial successes (what is going well)
c. Challenges (what needs to go better)

The final written report must be turned it by December 20, 2006

a. Executive summary (or project abstract)

b. A brief history of the problem or situation (how long has it persisted, can you estimate its
financial or operational impact)
c. The management issues surrounding the problem or situation (what outcomes or insights
would management value, what needs to be measured)
d. A brief description of any options available to management (what has management tried,
what would management like to try)
e. A description of the simplifying assumptions made during analysis (are these
simplifications realistic, are any assumptions especially damaging to the validity of the
results)
f. A presentation of the analysis (include any printouts that you believe illustrate your
thoughts, what conclusions can you make)
g. Extensions to the analysis

Each team is expected to lead a brief (15 minute) class discussion of their project on December 20, 2006.
Further, the final report should be delivered to the company contact person on or before that date.
Student Information Sheet MBA-675 Fall 2006

Name ___________________________________________________________

E-Mail Address __________________________________

FAX Number ________-_____________

Day-Time Phone Number _________-______________

Night-Time Phone Number _________-______________

Home Address _____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

Current Employer _____________________________________________

Work Address _____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

College-level Experience
Course Year

Probability and Statistics ___________________ _________________

Operations Research ___________________ _________________

or Management Science

Production Operations ___________________ _________________