Operations

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

In fiercely competitive global and dynamic environments, companies face increasing pressures to exceed customer expectations along multiple performance measures, such as cost, quality, flexibility and innovativeness. To outperform their competitors, many firms make the mistake of mimicking their rivals, rather than focusing on developing the organizational capabilities that competitors will find difficult to match over the long term. And although operations are at the core of a firm’s value adding activities, few firms have sought to build a sustainable competitive advantage around these capabilities.

Operations deals with the design, management and continuous improvement of business processes. It aims at providing some of the core concepts in operations that are essential for leveraging a firm’s operational capabilities to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. This course provides a logical and rigorous approach to plan and control process structure and managerial levers to achieve desired business process performance.

On completion of this subject, students should be able to:

• Analyse real-world processes and evaluate their consistency with the firm strategy.
• Apply process analysis techniques for identification of bottlenecks and suggest approaches for de-bottlenecking.
• Identify managerial levers for controlling inventory and apply simple analytical models for estimating needed safety stock for a desired service level.
• Identify the drivers of variability in processes and propose solutions to mitigate its ill effects using simple queuing theory concepts.
• Use robust statistical process control techniques to ensure capability and control of a process.
• Apply six-sigma and lean concepts to a wide range of business processes.

Term 1:

• Contribution to class learning (5%)
  • Throughout subject
• 4 quizzes (20%)
  • 15 minutes each
  • Throughout subject
• 2 x syndicate case assignments (30%)
  • Equivalent to 300 words per student per assignment
  • Week 4 and Week 8

• Final examination (45%)
• hurdle requirement
• 3 hours
• End of subject

Term 2 & 4:

• Contribution to class learning (10%)
  • Throughout subject
• 4 quizzes (20%)
  • 15 minutes each
  • Throughout subject
• 2 x syndicate case assignments (25%)
  • Equivalent to 300 words per student per assignment
  • Week 4 and Week 8

• Final examination (45%)
  • hurdle requirement
  • 3 hours
  • End of subject

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.