Harambe University College

Department of Business Administration

Graduate MBA program

Second Term, 2019

Operations Management (MBA 672 )
(3 credits)
Instructor: Mulachew Haile
Course Description:

Operations Management is the management of processes or systems that transform inputs into
finished goods and/or provide services. Over the past decades, many firms have learned the
painful lessons that neglect of the operations function which can be extremely hazardous to the
health of the organization. It has been demonstrated that operations management becomes a
primary function of a firm, and plays an important role in effectively improving the firm’s
performance and competitiveness.

This course is designed to address the key operations issues in manufacturing and service
organizations that have strategic as well as tactical implications. The concepts and tools
learnt from this course will apply to any industry including for-profit organizations,
manufacturing and service companies.

Course Objective:

This course aims at providing the students with the concepts and techniques that are applied to
the design, planning, control and improvement of manufacturing and service operating systems.
After completing the course, it’s hoped that the students can identify the important role of
operations management in firms, and use the quantitative and qualitative tools to analyze the
basic operations-related issues. Specially, this course will attempt to enable the students to:
1. Understand the role of operations management in the overall business strategy of a firm;
2. Understand the interdependence of the operating system with other key functional areas of a
firm;

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3. Identify and evaluate the key factors and the interdependence of these factors in the design of
effective operating systems;
4. Identify and evaluate a range of tools appropriate for the analysis of operating systems of a
firm;
5. Identify and evaluate the comparative approaches to operations management in an
international context;
6. Understand the applications of operations management policies and techniques to the service
sector and manufacturing firms.

Course Materials

Text book:

Chase Richard B and Aquilano N.J: Production and operations management manufacturing and
services, 12th edtion: MC Graw-Hill, 1998.

Reading List
William J. Stevenson. Operations Management., 9th Ed., McGraw-Hill, 2007

J. Heizer and B. Render. Operations Management., 8th Ed., Pearson Prentice Hall,
2006.
Russell, R. S. and Taylor, B. W.Operations Management. 4th edition, Pearsons Education, 2003
Joseph G. Monks, operations management, theory and problems. 3rd edition, 1987.

Teaching Method and Class Activities

Basic concepts and techniques commonly used in the operations management area will be
introduced. In the classes whenever possible, we will raise some practical examples to help
students better understand how to use the knowledge and skills for the analysis and control of
operations processes and systems.

Students are highly encouraged to actively participate in all classes and share their experiences in
class. There is no single book to be used as a reference; different books will be recommended
chapter wise depending on availability and richness of concepts by each book. Students are

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responsible to organize and read the materials. In classes, we use the teaching notes in PPT
format. In addition, we also use the whiteboard to solve some numerical examples.

All students can feel free to meet with the instructor for any question. However, if a student
hopes to see the instructor, the student should make an appointment by e-mail and/or phone.

Grading System

Class Participation (Optional)………………………………………………………………….5%

Marked Assignments and Presentation ………………………………………………….20-25%%
Mid Exam …………………………………………………………………………………….30%
Final Exam …………………………………………………………………………………... 45%

Time for final exam and presentations will be agreed in class.

Class room Requirements and conduct

As indicated earlier, students’ participation is highly encouraged. To make the class quite
warm, icebreakers, short movies (at most 15 min) related to the subject matter will be
taken care of by students. A group of two students can facilitate this and they are
responsible to keep the class alive and windup the session by summarizing the lesson of
the video/icebreaker.
Classroom disciplines -General rules should be observed. It is absolutely unacceptable
to use mobile phones or pagers during the classes. Students are expected to attend every
class. Punctuality is also very important.
Assignments and Exams- Information on all assignments and exams will be given
in advance of the events. Students should submit assignments keeping the deadline and
attend the examinations; no reassessment exam will be given to absentees for trivial
excuses.

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Course Content (Tentative)
Chapter 1: Introduction to Operations Management, Chapter 2: Strategy, Competitiveness
and productivity ( 5 hrs)…Heizer
 Definition of Operations
 Difference between product and service
 Operations Strategy
Competitive priority:
Cost, Quality, Flexibility, Speed
Chapter 3: Quality Management … Russell, R. S. and Taylor, B. W.
 Meaning of Quality
 TQM
 Cost of quality
 Seven QC tools
 ISO Certification
Chapter 4: Statistical Quality Control… Russell, R. S. and Taylor, B. W.
 p-chart and c-chart
 X-bar chart and R chart
 Process Capability

Chapter 5: Product and Service Design (J. Heizer and B. Render. Operations Management /Taylor)
 Design process
􀃆Idea generation, Feasibility study
􀃆Prototyping, Form Design
􀃆Functional design, Production design
􀃆Final design
 Concurrent Design & Concurrent Engineering
 Service design
Chapter 6: Process Selection….Stevenson/Chase
Supplementary: Process Analysis
Chapter 7: Capacity Planning… Heizer/Monks
Chapter 8: Facility Location Decisions…Stevenson
Chapter 9: Facility Layout Decisions…Stevenson
 Types of layout
􀃆Process layout, Product layout, and Fixed-position layout and hybrid
 Assembly Line Balancing
Chapter 10: HR in operations Management (Independent reading/Assignment)…Heizer
Behavioral and physical considerations in Job design
Work measurement and standard determination

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Chapter 11: Forecasting (Independent Reading)… Taylor
 Moving average method
 Weighted-moving average
 Exponential smoothing
 Seasonal adjustment
 Forecasting accuracy (MAD)
Chapter 12: Inventory Management (Independent Reading)…Stevenson/ Monks
 Dependent and Independent demand
 ABC classification
 EOQ
 Reorder point
Chapter 13: Aggregate production Planning, MPS, MRP… Heizer
 Chase Demand
 Level production
 ATP (Available-to-promise)
Chapter14: Scheduling…
 Forward and backward loading
 Scheduling when there is one machine/n jobs
 Scheduling when there is 2/n machine
Chapter 15: Supply Chain Management (Russell, R. S. and Taylor, B. W.,
 What is supply chain?
 What is supply chain management?
 Bullwhip effect
 Sourcing (In-house or Outsource)
 VMI
 E-procurement

Class Beginning ……………………………………………………………….....May 17 ,2019

Class Starting time: 8:30 am but subjected for adjustment to 8:00am
Note: Students should come prepared to class by going through the material stated. On the other hand,
both the above items should be in place by respective students. The first item starts from the 2nd class.