Operations Management

Instructor
Gopesh Anand, Associate Professor of of Business Administration, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign

•Professional information and background

•Coursera profile

Course Description
This course is an introduction to operations management. In this course, you will learn about the
role of operations in organizations and how operations links to other business functions. You will
learn decision-making frameworks and techniques that are applicable to operations at different
organizational levels – in management-level strategic decisions such as selecting between in-
house production and outsourcing, and in front line tactical decisions such as choosing between
ordering larger quantities versus ordering more often. The frameworks and techniques that you
will learn are applicable in manufacturing and service-focused organizations.

The content of this course will relate to concepts from related disciplines such as statistics and
economics as well as your work and day-to-day experiences. As this is a survey course, you will
get an overview of areas within operations such as operations strategy and supply chain
management, which can be explored in detail in more advanced courses. Although this course
will not include specific and advanced applications of operations analysis and optimization
techniques, you will gain competence in using the basic versions of such techniques.

This course can serve as a foundation for further education toward becoming a specialist in
operations areas such as procurement and quality management. At the same time, it is also useful
for managers pursuing careers in other business disciplines such as marketing and financial
accounting, and information systems. This course will provide a background in operations,
necessary for making good general business decisions, and serve as preparation for a role in
upper echelons of management.

Course Goals and Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

 Understand the role of operations management

 Relate underlying principles to operations management frameworks and techniques
 Synthesize information to make strategic operations decisions
 Evaluate processes on different dimensions
 Apply analytical techniques for tactical operations decisions
Recommended Background
Although the course is designed to be self-contained, knowledge of the concepts of probability
distributions from statistics and of break-even point from economics will be useful for you to
understand the fundamentals underlying some of the concepts you will learn in this course. Your
experiences as a consumer of goods and services and as an employee in any job will also serve as
background information that will be useful for you to see the intuition behind some concepts.

Textbook and Readings

There is no required textbook for this course. There are required and recommended readings for
each module that are listed in the course outline that follows. All of the required readings and
most of the suggested readings are from Harvard Business Review (HBR). By registering for
free, you can access up to 15 articles every month. Articles other than those from HBR can be
accessed through JSTOR, where you may also register for free and access up to five articles per
4-week course. Direct links to all articles will be provided in the Readings page for each course
module.

Course Outline
The course consists of four modules that focus on key areas of operations management.

Module 1: Operations Strategy

Key Concepts:

 Operations for competitive advantage

 Input-process-output view
 DuPont analysis
 Order qualifiers and winners
 Competitive capabilities
 Implementing operations strategy
 Goods-services continuum

Required Readings:

 Skinner, W. (1974). The focused factory. Harvard Business Review, May-June, 113-121.

 Frei, F. X. (2006). Breaking the trade-off between efficiency and service. Harvard
Business Review, 84(11), 93-101.

Suggested Readings:
  Brumme, H., Simonovich, D., Skinner, W., and Van Wassenhove, L. N. (2015). The
Strategy‐Focused Factory in Turbulent Times. Production and Operations Management,
Early View Online.
 Cooper, R., and Kaplan, R. S. (1988). Measure costs right: make the right decisions.
Harvard Business Review, 66(5), 96-103.

Module 2: Process Analysis

Key Concepts:

 Types of process arrangements

 Process metrics
 Little's Law
 Process capacity
 Capacity utilization
 Impact of variability

Required Readings:

 Hayes, R. H., and Wheelwright, S.C. (1979) "Link manufacturing process and product
life cycles." Harvard Business Review, 57(1), 133-140.

Suggested Readings:

 Elton, J., and Roe, J. (1998) Bringing discipline to project management. Harvard
Business Review, 76(2), 153-159.

Module 3: Inventory and Supply Chain Management

Key Concepts:

 Classifications of inventory
 Efficiency metrics related to inventory
 Economic order quantity
 Continuous review system
 Making outsourcing decisions
 Challenges in managing supply chains

Required Readings:

 Callioni, G., de Montgros, X., Slagmulder, R., Van Wassenhove, L. N., and Wright, L.
(2005). Inventory-driven costs. Harvard Business Review, 83(3), 135-141.
 Gottfredson, M., Puryear, R., and Phillips, S. (2005). Strategic sourcing. Harvard
Business Review, 83(2), 132-139.

Suggested Readings:
  Narayanan, V. G., and Raman, A. (2004). Aligning incentives in supply chains. Harvard
Business Review, 82(11), 94-102.
 Lee, H. L. (2002). Aligning supply chain strategies with product uncertainties. California
Management Review, 44(3), 105-119.

Module 4: Quality Management

Key Concepts:

 Product and process quality

 Quality management initiatives
 Principles of quality management
 Statistical process control
 Process capability

Required Readings:

 Garvin, D. A. (1987). Competing on the 8 dimensions of quality. Harvard Business

Review, 65(6), 101-109.
 Garvin, D. A., Edmondson, A. C., & Gino, F. (2008). Is yours a learning organization?
Harvard Business Review, 86(3), 109-116.

Elements of This Course

The course is comprised of the following elements:

 Slides and videos. These two mediums will contain a substantial proportion of the
material in this course. You may stream these videos for playback within the browser by
clicking on their titles.
 Readings. Although only a few of the articles are listed as required, reading the
additional optional articles will give you a deeper understanding of the topics.
 In-video questions. These questions, appearing as pauses in the videos and indicated by
a “Think!” sign will prompt you to reflect upon concepts from the course and apply them
to different contexts that you will be able to relate to, based on your intuition and day-to-
day experiences. Your responses to these will not be used toward your grades.
 Practice Quizzes. Each module will include practice quizzes (one to three per module),
intended for you to assess your understanding of the topics. Your responses to these will
not be used toward your grades. You will be allowed unlimited attempts at each practice
quiz. Each attempt may present a different selection of questions to you. There is no time
limit on how long you take to complete each attempt at the quiz.
 Graded Quizzes. Each module will include one quiz consisting mainly of multiple
choice questions. You will be allowed multiple attempts at each quiz and the attempts
will not be timed. Each attempt may present a different selection of questions to you.
Your highest score will be used when calculating your final score in the class. You will
be allowed two attempts at each quiz per every four hours.
  Assignments. Each module will include one or two assignments. The scores for these
will count toward your grade in the course. These assignments will be peer graded. You
can attempt these assignments multiple times.

Peer Grading of Assignments

Although the solutions to the assignments will be readily available to you, in order to get more
value out of this course, you must attempt the assignments before viewing the solutions or even
peeking at them. Once you have submitted your assignment, you will be asked to evaluate the
assignments of two of your peers. Before evaluating your peers, please view the solution and use
the information provided there to learn from it and to grade your peers. In order to get credit for
your own assignment submission, it is mandatory for you to complete the grading of two of your
peers for that assignment.

Changes to the Course

Online teaching and the on-demand availability of the entire course are relatively new
experiences for me and for the team that is putting this course together and bringing it to you.
Thus, although we will stick to the syllabus as much as possible, we may make minor changes,
which we will communicate to you through announcements on the Coursera platform. I request
your patience in advance in anticipation of any minor glitches in content and delivery, and/or any
changes in the same. Regardless, I am always looking for ideas to improve the course content
and delivery, and would greatly appreciate your suggestions. Please see the information in the
Getting and Giving Help paragraph below for getting in touch with the course team.

How to Pass This Course

To qualify for a Course Certificate, simply start verifying your coursework at the beginning of
the course (with no upfront charges), and pay the registration fee for certification anytime before
you complete the course. This gives you the ability to delay payment until you’re confident you
will complete the requirements to pass the course. Coursera Financial Aid is available to offset
the registration cost for students with demonstrated economic needs. If you have questions about
Course Certificates, please see the help topics here.

If you choose not to verify your work, you can still participate in the complete course.

The following table explains the breakdown for what is required in order to pass the class
and qualify for a Course Certificate. You must pass each and every required activity in
order to pass this course.

Number per Estimated time per % required to

Activity Required?
module module pass
Lecture Videos Yes 10-12 1-2 hours N/A
Practice Quizzes No 2 1 hour N/A
Graded (Module)
Yes 1 1 hour 80%
Quizzes
Assignments Yes 1 1 hour 80%

Getting and Giving Help

You can get/give help via the following means:

 Use the Learner Help Center to find information regarding specific technical problems.
For example, technical problems would include error messages, difficulty submitting
assignments, or problems with video playback. If you cannot find an answer in the
documentation, you can also report your problem to the Coursera staff by clicking on the
Contact Us! link available on each topic's page within the Learner Help Center.
 Use the Content Issues forum to report errors in lecture video content, assignment
questions and answers, assignment grading, text and links on course pages, or the content
of other course materials. University of Illinois staff and Community Mentors will
monitor this forum and respond to issues.

Note: Due to the large number of students enrolled in this course, the instructor is not able to
answer emails sent directly to his account. Rather, all questions should be reported as described
above.