Program design and contents
Operations Management
From integrated supply chain planning to better coordination and collaboration in your supply chain in 6 weeks.
In this module, you will delve into the core of operations management: the effective design, management, and improvement of operational processes. You will explore how strategic goals translate into choices regarding process structure, layout, capacity, lead times, variability, service levels, and inventory.
The learning journey begins with a solid foundation: you will discover how factors such as lead time, utilization, and variability determine the performance of production and service processes. You will then delve into the design of planning and control structures, focusing on customer order decoupling points, buffers, and takt time. The module concludes with a practical exploration of inventory management and demand uncertainty, working with concrete quantitative models.
Over six weeks, you will complete an online kick-off, three intensive on-campus days, and a deepening phase. You will conclude with a graded assignment based on your practical experience. By combining theory, calculation models, and simulations with reflection on your own organization, you will develop both analytical insight and practical application and build the capacity to make processes more effective and resilient.
Online kick-off
During the online kickoff, you will meet your instructors and fellow participants and learn about the program's structure and the final assignment. You will explore your learning goals, case study, and expectations, so you can focus on your on-campus work.
Day 1 – From strategy to operational setup
The first day focuses on the strategic design of operational processes. You will explore how business objectives translate into choices in process design, layout, capacity, and management. You will learn about key variables such as lead time, utilization, variability, waiting time, and service levels, and the logic of factory physics as an analytical framework to connect these. Simulations and interactive analyses demonstrate how small design choices can lead to significant performance differences.
Day 2 – Governance and design of planning structures
On day 2, you will delve into the systematic design of planning and management structures tailored to the product, market, and customer expectations. Using concepts like the customer order decoupling point, buffers in time, capacity and inventory, takt time, and the Dell model, you'll explore how to structure operations and the supply chain with robustness and flexibility. You will be provided with a concrete framework for building a management structure, from strategic choices to daily planning.
Day 3 – Working with inventory, uncertainty and variation
The third day focuses on inventory management and demand uncertainty. You will explore how to provide reliable service in a context of variation, limited resources, and unpredictable demand. You will work with models such as Economic Order Quantity (EOQ), the newsvendor model, safety stock calculations, and the square root law. You will analyze how inventory levels, demand forecasts, and service levels are interrelated and how they impact costs and customer satisfaction.
Deepening after the lecture days
Between and after the lectures, you will continue working independently with readings, assignments, and your own case study. You will apply insights from the lectures to your processes, further develop scenarios and design options, and prepare for the final assignment.
Assessment of your own practice
You will complete the master module with a graded assignment that directly aligns with your work environment and learning objectives. In this assignment, you will demonstrate your ability to analyze operational processes, justify design and management choices, and formulate improvement options for lead time, service, costs, and flexibility.
