The DOTM area focuses on operations management in the service and manufacturing sectors as the primary means for executing strategy.

DOTM emphasizes the critical importance of operations to a firm's competitive success and explores connections at the firm level to other key organizational functions such as design, finance and marketing.

DOTM has a long and venerable tradition going back a half century to the formative days of operations research and management science. UCLA Anderson created one of the earliest business school academic units to attract the most renowned leaders in this discipline, spurring pioneering research, acting as a magnet for two very large grants to the school that made regional impact, and playing an important role in the 1953 founding of TIMS, one of the two premier professional societies in operations research and management science. UCLA Anderson's DOTM area has been ranked #2 among U.S. business schools in citation impact. DOTM seeks to combine the process view of operations with analytical approaches in conducting research and preparing students for a variety of career opportunities in consulting, financial services, high technology, manufacturing, retail and entrepreneurial ventures.