BUS 3020 Syllabus Achieving Effective Operations

Term A 2015
Prof. Walter Towner
Phone: (508) 944-3862 cell
I am available to meet you on campus by appointment.
fabman@wpi.edu
Course web page: http://my.wpi.edu

Overview and Objectives

Emphasis will be on learning how to think critically and creatively. In this course you will be
encouraged to approach operational problems from many perspectives and to combine various
approaches to find innovative solutions. As a result of this course you will be expected to have an
increased understanding of professional and ethical responsibility; and knowledge of
contemporary issues. The processes that organizations use to get work done have changed
fundamentally in the last 10 years, taking advantage of new information technologies and
concepts of lean thinking. Production systems is a term that probably describes the products
(which might be a physical item, service, or environmental system) and processes of an
organization. This course focuses on providing an introduction to the design and operation of
such systems. Specific learning objectives include:

To familiarize students with operations decisions (e.g. layout, quality, process design,
productivity, inventory) in a lean environment, focused on the entire supply chain
To familiarize students with broader issues that impact process design including global, societal
and ethical issues.
To develop students abilities to analyze data and draw conclusions
To develop students problem-solving skills as well as innovation and new ways of thinking.

Our Mission
The School of Business at WPI is committed to providing education, research, and outreach that
focus on:
leading and managing technology-based organizations;
integrating technology into the workplace; and
creating new processes, products, services, and organizations based on technology.

We emphasize:
innovative and project-based education that integrates the theory and the practice of
management, and prepares students to assume positions of leadership in an increasingly
global business environment;
basic scholarship, while also valuing the scholarship of application and the scholarship of
instruction; and
interaction with the business community focused primarily on technological
entrepreneurship.
Course
The course format includes four hours of classroom instruction and discussion and 2 1/2 hours of
labs per week plus a term project. In addition to the text there will be recent articles from
journals that relate to the textbook chapters. Recent news articles as they relate to the course
material will also be required reading.
Catalog Course Description
BUS 3020. ACHIEVING EFFECTIVE OPERATIONS.
Operations are embedded in a constantly changing network of relationships with various
stakeholders including customers and suppliers. Within the organization, scarce resources
(including financial, human, and technological) need to be ethically allocated and aligned with
strategic goals. This course focuses on process analysis, design, and implementation within the
constraints of stakeholder networks and available resources.
Course Materials
Required Reading
Operations & Supply Chain Management The Core 3th Edition, F. Robert Jacobs and Richard B
Chase.
Course Assignments and Grading
Each student will be expected to attend each class having read the assignment that they as
described in the task course schedule. The course will be graded on the basis of or activities, each
of which is described in more detail below. First two activities exams in class participation will
be based on individual work, while the second two lab and project will be completed in 19.
Students will work in teams of three summary assignment beginning of the course. You will
work in the same team throughout the course.
I use the following grading standards:
A:

Superior level work. Outstanding grasp of concepts and theories. Participation and
assignments bring new insights to the discussion. Work is marked by a superior
integration of ideas, richness of interpretation, and effective use of source material.

B:

Good, adequate level work. Work incorporates well-developed arguments and good
application of class concepts.
2

C:

Work that is acceptable but below average expectations. Generally characterized by a

basic level of understanding of the concepts and theories, participation that can state the
facts but does not typically bring new insights or important questions to the topic at hand.
Usually marked by reasonable conclusions that are supported by superficial analyses and
arguments.

D, F: Lets hope not!!

You should assume at the outset that the course will be graded on an A 90% of the total points,
B 80%, and C 70% scale.
Some of the graded activities will be conducted in groups. I will assign groups (with your input)
at the beginning of the course. Early in the course, you should make sure that you contact your
group members and exchange contact information.
Submission of your work and email communications
We will use the digital drop box available on mywpi.edu for all assignments. If you have not
registered with WPI to have access to mywpi.edu, this should be a priority task. You may submit
them to me in any electronic fashion that I can reasonably open. This will primarily be Word docs,
Excel sheets, PowerPoint files and pdfs of scanned handwritten pages.

Course Grade Breakdown

Chapter HW 30%
Chapter Quizzes 30%
Laboratory Assignments 15%
Attendance in lab sessions is critical. The physical simulations we will carry out the lab
require participation of everyone in the class, and cannot be duplicated by individuals or
small groups of students. If you miss the lab cannot be made up. A grad TA will run the lab
sessions.
Final Exam 5%
Team Project 20%
The team project is due at the end of the course, on the day that your project is presented you
will have two deliverables:
1. A paper, which will be 15 to 20 double-spaced pages, not including appendices. Diagrams, charts,
and data to help illustrate your points are greatly encouraged.
2. A Prerecorded 10-15 min. presentation, which is limited to about 6 to 10 PowerPoint slides.
Because this is a short presentation, you need to focus on the most important aspects of your
project.

As noted above, the paper and presentation should describe the operations management in a
service or manufacturing industry. Topics to be considered include:
3

Airlines (how do the operations management of large versus low cost airlines differ)
Project management
Banks (commercial bank operations or large investment bank operations)
Environmental (energy such as wind, or solar power effects on operations)
Plant layout
Operations management applied to sports management
Food services (operations management apply to restaurants or food wholesalers)
Healthcare (operations of emergency rooms or other hospital care operations)
Mail in freight delivery operations (UPS or Federal Express)
Hotels or resorts operations (chains versus independents)
Telecommunications operations
Outsourcing: pros, cons, and issues
Green manufacturing
Operating airport security

You may select a specific company to use as a case study or discuss industry more broadly. Your
project should be based on research, which is documented through many references. Sources can
include websites and other web-based material, but should also include recent journal articles or
books and personal interviews.
Notes:
Students are expected to read the material assigned BEFORE coming to each class.
Each student should own a text and keep it after the course as this text will serve as an excellent
reference source for many years.

Policies and Procedures

Urgent Messages and Announcements
Any urgent messages about the class I will send out via email. If you use an email address other
than your wpi account, you should make sure that you forward mail sent to WPI to the email
address that you use*. I assume that email is read by students within one business day after it is
posted. I will be posting announcements regularly on the course web page at http://my.wpi.edu
and expect that you will be checking this page a couple of times per week. I use Microsoft
Office 2010.
*Visit this link to forward your wpi email to another email account (refresh the page if you get an
error message; you will need to log in to access the page):
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Services/Email/forward.html
Office Hours and Contacting Me
My availability is a high priority. I do not have regularly scheduled office hours because I have
not found them to be very effective. Im generally available before and after class, and am happy
to set up appointments at other times. I also try to return phone calls and email within 24 hours
(during the week). I check voice mail frequently during the day, so please leave a message if I do
not answer. If you leave me voice mail, please give your name and number SLOWLY and
CLEARLY at the end of the message.
Electronic Submission
I prefer that you turn in electronic copies of all assignments before the beginning of class via the
assignment manager. You may submit a hard copy as well if you like, but it is not necessary.
When you submit your files, please:
Give your files meaningful and unique names
Include your name in the document being submitted (so that if I print it out, your name
appears on the printed copy)
Format your files for printing (if for some reason this is not possible (e.g., if you have a
very complex flow chart, for example) please let me know this when you submit the file)
Check your files to make sure that they are virus-free.
Deadlines
All assignments in this course have deadlines. I will not accept any reflective assignments or
group case analyses after the deadline. For other assignments, I penalize by a letter grade for
each day the assignment is late. If you anticipate difficulty in meeting a deadline for a legitimate
reason (I am excluding procrastination here as a legitimate reason!), please contact me in
advance.
Library and Other Resources
You will find electronic indices, particularly Ebsco Business Sources Premier, to be invaluable
resources in searching for books and articles. You may access the library via the WPI website
(http://www.wpi.edu/+library).

Academic Honesty
WPI has an established academic honor code, described in The WPI Student Judicial Policies
and Procedures. I expect all of the work that you create for this class (either individually or as a
team) will be original. Work prepared for other courses at WPI (including those you are taking
concurrently) or another institution is not considered original for the purposes of this course.
While I encourage you to talk with other students about course material and reflective
assignments, it is my expectation that you will not discuss any examinations with other students
in the course. If you have a question about whether something is appropriate, please do not
hesitate to ask.
The WPI School of Business expects students to behave in an ethical manner at all times. This
includes the legal acquisition of the rights to all assigned material. Digital material (such as
Harvard Business School Publishing cases and articles) typically limits the use to one buyer, with
no transfer of ownership or use. It is not considered ethical for students in the School of
Business to pass digital copies of material or paper reproductions that violate the terms of
purchase. In simple terms, this means that material purchased by one student may not be
distributed to another student, nor can one student accept material from another. Each student is
expected to purchase his/her own access to assignments.
Similarly, it is unethical to plagiarize. This includes using the thoughts, ideas, words, or
expressions of another in submitted academic work and representing them as ones own, rather
than accurately and adequately attributing them to the original source.
To view WPIs Academic Honesty policy: http://www.wpi.edu/offices/policies/policy.html
Students with Disabilities
Located on the first floor of Daniels Hall (room 116), the Writing Center is a valuable resource
for helping you improve as a writer. Writing Center tutors are your peers (other undergraduate
and graduate students at WPI) who are experienced writers themselves and who enjoy helping
others work through thinking and writing problems. Although a single tutoring session should
never be seen as a quick fix for any writing difficulty, these sessions can help you identify your
strengths and weaknesses, and teach you strategies for organizing, revising, and editing your
course papers, projects, and presentations. Writing Center services are free and open to all WPI
students in all classes, and tutors will happily work with you at any stage of the writing process
(early brainstorming, revising a draft, polishing sentences in a final draft). Visit the Writing
Center website <wpi.edu/+writing<http://wpi.edu/+writing>> to make an appointment.