Nepal Open University

Faculty of Management and Law

Masters of Business Administration (MBA)
Course: Operations Management Credit Hours: 3
Course No.: MGPOM 592
Level: MBA
Semester: Third
Course Description
The basic purpose of this course is to enable students to identify and analyse the problems
managers face in the area of production of goods and services. This course provides
frameworks and methods that are useful in analysing management of a firm’s operations and
the tools to deal with operational issues in order to gain competitive advantage. The course
focuses on product design, manufacturing or service delivery in for-profit and non-profit
organisations and in service and manufacturing organisations. Students learn how to
benchmark and to apply risk management techniques to innovation.

Learning Outcome
On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
 develop a conceptual framework of the real operations
 identify the needs of formulating operations strategy in every aspect of operations
 assess the importance of production planning and scheduling
 trace the importance of the system design integrating process selection, work design
and measurement
 design the strategy for operations improvement

Course Outline
Unit I: Framework of operations management
Concept of Operations Management, Transformation process, Operations performance,
Operations as a competitive weapon, Productivity, Operations Strategy
Unit II: Product/Service Development
Product and service development stages, quality function deployment, value engineering,
operational issues in product life cycle, strategic capacity planning for product and services
Unit III: System Design
Process selection, Work design and measurement, Organizational design, Location planning
and analysis, Facility layout, supply network design, ICT and System design
Unit IV: Production Planning and Scheduling
Aggregate Planning, aggregate planning strategies: chase, level and mixed, Capacity
planning process, Master production scheduling, Short term scheduling, sequencing,
Assignment model: case of minimization and maximization, balanced and unbalanced
problem; Linear Programming Problem (LPP): Introduction, Problem formulation,
Assumptions, Simplex method – case of maximization and minimization.
Unit V: Materials Management
Concept, Deterministic and probabilistic inventory model, Material Requirement Planning,
Unit VI: Supply Chain Management
Concept, strategic importance, strategies and competitiveness, logistics and distribution,
supply chain performance
Unit VIII: Improving operations

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Lean synchronization, Operations improvement, Organizing for improvement, Competitors’
analysis

Readings
NOU Compendium
Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A., & Johnston, R. (2013). Operations management (7th ed.)
Harlow, UK: Pearson
Heizer, J., Render, B. Munson, C., & Sachan, A. (2017). Operations management:
Sustainability and supply chain management (12th ed.). Uttar Pradesh, India: Pearson
Norman, Gaither and Greg Frazier (2002). Operations management, (9th ed.). Bangalore:
Thomson
Roberta S. Russell and Bernard W. Taylor III (2011). Operations Management, (7th ed.) New
Delhi: Wiley India Pvt. Ltd
Stevenson, W. (2012). Operations management. (11th ed.). New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

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Content Elaboration and Modus Operandi
Unit/ objective Contents Learning Mode of delivery and Hours References
Outcomes activities required
Unit 1. Framework of Operations After the  Study materials 4 hrs. You Tube Links
The objective of this unit  Concept of operations completion of this  Case analysis https://www.youtube.com/watch
is to make students build management unit, students will  Live Classes ?v=dX7DlPrvihc
the critical knowledge  Transformation process, be able to relate  self-evaluation review
https://www.youtube.com/watch
about operations  Operations performance the concepts into questions ?v=rVk8BSWbsKY
management  Operations as a real operations  Assignment
competitive weapon  Exercises Slack, et al., (2013) –
 Productivity  Group Work: Video chapters 1, 2, and 3
 Operations strategy Heizer, et al., (2017) –
Production
chapter 1 and 2
 Video lectures
Unit 2 Product/Service After the  Video lectures 6 hrs. Article link
The main objective of development completion of this  Study materials https://onlinelibrary.wil
 Product
this unit is to address the and service unit, students will ey.com/doi/abs/10.1111
 Case analysis
issue of product development stages be able to develop /j.1937-
 Live Classes 5956.2005.tb00231.x
development in the
 Quality function critical  Self-evaluation review
organizations deployment understanding of questions Heizer, et al., (2017) –
 Value Engineering product  Assignment chapter 4
 Operational Issues in development in the Slack, et al., (2013) –
 Exercise
product life cycle real sense chapters 5 & 11
 Term Paper
 Strategic capacity
planning for product and
services
Unit 3 System design After the  Video lectures 9 hrs. You tube link
The main objective of  Process selection completion of this  Study materials https://www.youtube.co
this unit is to make  Work design and unit, students will  Case analysis m/watch?
students understand about measurement be able to link the v=VnOFJHkp_UQ
 Live Classes
the  Organizational design various concepts  self-evaluation review Slack, et al., (2013) –
System development  Location planning and into system design questions chapters 6, 7, & 9(S)
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 analysis  Assignment Heizer, et al., (2017) –
chapters 7, 8 & 9
 Facility layout  Exercise
 Supply network design  Article Review
 ICT and system design
Unit 4 Production Planning and After the  Video lectures 10 hrs. Heizer, et al., (2017) –
The main objective of Scheduling completion of this chapters 13, 7(S) & 15
 Study materials Slack, et al., (2013) –
this unit is to make  Aggregate Planning unit, students will  Case analysis chapter 11
students understand how  aggregate planning be able to  Live classes
to link business plan with strategies: chase, level  link the various  Self-evaluation review
operation plan and mixed, concepts into questions
 Capacity planning production  Assignment
process planning and  Exercise
 Master production scheduling
scheduling  understand the
 Scheduling use of
 Sequencing optimization
 Assignment model: case model in
of minimization and production
maximization, balanced planning and
and unbalanced scheduling
problem;
 Linear Programming
Problem (LPP):
Introduction, Problem
formulation,
Assumptions, Simplex
method – case of
maximization and
minimization.

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Unit 5 Material Management After the  Study materials 7 hrs Heizer, et al., (2017) –
chapters 12, & 14
The main objective of  Concept, completion of this  Case analysis Slack, et al., (2013) –
this unit is to make  Deterministic and unit, students will  Live classes chapter 12
students understand how probabilistic inventory be able to gain  Self-evaluation review
to control the material model knowledge on questions
flow within workplace  Material Requirement dealing with  Assignment
Planning material  Exercise
management
issues

Unit 6 Supply Chain After the  Study materials 6 hrs Heizer, et al., (2017) –
The main objective of Management completion of this chapter 11
 Case analysis Slack, et al., (2013) –
this unit is to make  Concept unit, students will  Live Classes chapter 13
understanding the dealing  Strategic importance be able to  Self-evaluation review
with supply chain issues  Strategies and demonstrate the questions
competitiveness outcome of supply  Assignment
 Logistic and distribution chain decision
 Supply chain
performance

Unit 7 Operations improvement After the  Video lectures 6 hrs. Heizer, et al., (2017) –
chapters 16
The main objective of  Lean synchronization completion of this  Study materials Slack, et al., (2013) –
this unit is to make  Operations improvement unit, students will  Case analysis chapters 15, 18 & 20
students understand the  Organizing for be able to apply  Live classes
way of developing improvement the product-  self-evaluation review Creating a
operations system  Competitors ‘analysis performance questions competitive analysis
matrix  Web-based assignment matrix
 Exercise
Link:

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resources.s3-us-west-
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Note: The instructor will be remunerated for organizing and monitoring field works and other practical works.

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Readings
NOU Compendium
Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A., & Johnston, R. (2013). Operations management (7th ed.)
Harlow, UK: Pearson
Heizer, J., Render, B. Munson, C., & Sachan, A. (2017). Operations management:
Sustainability and supply chain management (12th ed.). Uttar Pradesh, India: Pearson
Norman, Gaither and Greg Frazier (2002). Operations management, (9th ed.). Bangalore:
Thomson
Roberta S. Russell and Bernard W. Taylor III (2011). Operations Management, (7th ed.) New
Delhi: Wiley India Pvt. Ltd
Stevenson, W. (2012). Operations management. (11th ed.). New Delhi: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

7
 Evaluation plan
Schemes Total weightage
Internal evaluation 40 per cent
 Task 1: Article Review (group work) from the academic 3%
journals relating to course topic
 Task 2: Field Research (in group) and submitting report 10%
 Task 3: Learning Journal Portfolio and participation 3%
 Task 4: Mid-term exams 20%
 Task 5: Assignment 4%
External evaluation (End-term exams) 60 per cent

EVALUATION SCHEME
In Semester Evaluation End Semester Evaluation

a) Unit Assignment/ Project/ Task a) Situation Analysis and Problem Solving

b) Critical Comments/ Review b) Case Analysis
c) Interaction with the Tutor c) Short Answer Questions
d) Webinar/Seminar
e) Case Study and Web based assignments