Decisions, Operations & Technology Management

Enforced requisite: course 411. Decision-oriented course concerned with marketing research and data-driven marketing analytics. Detailed hands-on understanding of market research methodologies used in strategic assessment of customer perceptions and preferences. Extensive use of case studies.

Topics considered in this in-depth introduction to the subject include probabilities, random variables (expectation, variance, covariance, normal random variables), decision trees, estimation, hypothesis testing and multiple regression models. Emphasis on actual business problems and data.

Requisite: 402 An introduction to the uses of analytical methods for making strategic, tactical and operational decisions arising in Accounting, Finance, Marketing and Production. The focus is on three key areas in problem solving: formal problem definition, computer model formulation and alternatives evaluation.

Requisites: 402, 403 Considers the management of business processes that design, produce, distribute and deliver products or services or both. Provides tools for analyzing and improving processes across a variety of industries in the manufacturing, service and information sectors. Discusses performance measurement, process improvement and introduces strategic operations topics.

Students are required to take 402 and 410 as core courses. A 407-like course is required in the Executive MBA Program, and a recent AACSB ruling recommends that such material be part of all MBA curricula, but as of now 407 remains a (very popular) elective rather than a core course.

The primary sequels to the foundation courses each aim to support one or more major segments of the job market. Deciding what primary sequel courses to take in DOTM is straightforward once a student decides which job-market segments are of most interest. We recognize two segmentations. The first comprises just two sectors [1] service and [2] manufacturing, which respectively account roughly for 75% and 25% of past graduates' jobs. The second segmentation comprises the [1] finance-related, [2] marketing and [3] consulting and business development sectors, which respectively account for about 40%, 20% and 20% of the jobs; the remaining 20% is split among general management (8%), strategic planning (4%) and other smaller pieces.

Management 402's primary sequel, Management 213B, will be useful for students with an interest in the finance-related, marketing and consulting and business development segments because it stresses methods and applications in these areas.

Requisite: 402 Introduction to parameter and interval estimation, simple and multiple linear regression and correlation, fixed, random and mixed effects analysis of variance models and nonparametric statistics, all as they apply to management studies.

The primary sequels to Management 410 support the following job-market segments. Management 240A obviously targets students who expect to go into the service sector. Management 240F targets students heading toward the manufacturing sector or consulting. Management 240G targets consulting-bound students, and those heading toward international businesses. Management 241A targets students going into high-technology companies in either service or manufacturing, and is especially valuable to students headed toward the marketing or consulting and business development sectors.

Requisite: 410 Today's business environment is characterized by globalized operations, intense competition, rapid technological change and short product life cycles. Consequently, firms can no longer afford to operate in isolation. In many industries, competition has moved from the firm level to the supply chain level. Provides understanding of strategic, tactical and operational issues in supply chain management, with generous attention to the emerging digital economy.

Requisite: 410 This course studies the challenges of operating globally in a range of industries, including software, consulting, automotive, textile, etc. Several opportunities for hands-on quantitative methods, with a strategic perspective throughout.

Requisite: 410, 411 Management of the high-technology firm, including the acquisition, creation and utilization of technology and knowledge assets. Research and product development, product and process technologies, technology regimes, high technology markets, competition and technology strategies. Case examples are drawn from sectors such as computing, telecommunications, e-business, medical devices, nanotechnology, advanced transportation systems and electronics.

Finally, we discuss the foundation but non-core modeling course Management 407 and its primary sequels. One reason why Management 407 is viewed as foundational is that it helps prepare students for all of the big segments just mentioned: for the service segment by virtue of its service models; the manufacturing segment by virtue of its manufacturing models; the finance-related segment by virtue of the modeling skills it builds; the marketing segment by virtue of its marketing models and for the consulting segment by virtue of the great variety of problems for which it provides powerful problem-solving tools. Management 212A and Management 212B, which can be taken in any order after Management 407, amplify the benefits of Management 407 through greater depth in different directions: the former emphasizes deterministic methods, while the latter emphasizes probability-based methods.

Requisites: 407, Mathematics 31B Broad survey of deterministic models of decision sciences, including solution methods and applications management. Solution methods include linear programming, network optimization, integer programming and nonlinear programming. Application areas include corporate planning, finance, marketing, production and operations management, distribution and project management.

Requisites: 402 and 407 Broad survey of non-linear, time-staged and probabilistic models for managerial decision making. Application areas include finance, marketing, facilities design, production and energy systems.