Operations Management

Student Highlights

• SMU team wins BHP Challenge at Maritime Singapore Connect's Maritime Case Summit 2022
• SMU's Team Klaver crowned Grand Champion in MSC Maritime Digital Challenge 2021
• Three SMU undergraduates awarded MaritimeONE Scholarships to pursue vogages in maritime studies, Sep 2021
• Four SMU students awarded MaritimeONE Scholarship, Oct 2019
• SMU trio wins inaugural MSC Maritime Summit Case Challenge, May 2019
• MScOM Student Wu Yue won 2nd Prize in the MIT Sloan's 7th Annual Operations Simulation Competition, Aug 2011

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

MGMT611 Operations Management

When companies produce and deliver goods or services to meet customer demand, they do so by managing operations, in other words by executing business processes.  In this course, students discover how business processes can be designed, analyzed and improved to lift the performance of any organization, whether it is a bank, a hospital, a resort, or a fashion retailer.  The course reveals how process management skills can be used to reduce costs, lower inventories, cut waiting times, improve quality, enhance service levels, and increase revenues and company profits.  Specifically, students will gain practical knowledge of process design, demand forecasting, capacity planning, workflow planning and control, quality management, and lean operations. With a focus on the basic concepts that govern process management, the course also provides the necessary foundation to pursue further development in operations and supply chain management.

MGMT6022 Managing Innovation and Growth

Organisations, be it businesses, NGO’s or government institutions, need to innovate in order to remain legitimate and survive. They can innovate in their product or service, i.e. the value they deliver, or in the processes used to create and deliver the value. This need to innovate and scale up has become all the more important in the face of the disruption created by the pandemic.

Innovation requires imagination and creativity, but as Thomas Edison, the quintessential innovator, is quoted to have said: “None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” This course is not about the one percent imagination, but about the ninety-nine percent of perspiration, i.e. the hard work of managing innovation and the scaling up of a concept into a value creating activity.

OPIM614 Supply Chain Management

The supply chain function has evolved from the traditional focus on distribution and warehousing to a strategic function, enabling a critical competitive advantage for companies in today’s global market and production environments. A supply chain must support a company’s competitive strategy though management of the flows of products, information and funds in order to maximize the value for the entire chain. Supply chain management requires distinct strategies to manage supply and demand, increase the transparency between partners, and optimize the incentives along the entire value chain. In this course we will first consider the strategic fit between the supply chain's capabilities and the company's competitive strategy and see how financial figures give a clear measure of supply chain performance. We will move through the supply chain, beginning with the demand planning, then develop aggregate planning models to minimize operational costs while meeting demand. Inventory is a key lever for matching supply and demand and we will learn strategies to optimize inventory stocking decisions to maximize profit and support customer service level requirements. We will discuss how to assess the appropriate level of supply flexibility in different industries and see the quantitative impact of reactive capacity. We will study supply chain coordination and different methods of achieving strategic partnerships and assess the impact of aligning incentives between supply chain partners. While quantitative models and decisions are part of  this  course,  the  emphasis  is  on  the  qualitative  insights  needed  by  general  managers  or management consultants. Using case studies and simulations, we will demonstrate that companies can  use  (and  have  used)  the  principles  from  this  course  to  significantly  enhance  their competitiveness.

OPIM616 Business Value of Digital Disruptions - CXO Perspectives

Successful orchestration of planning and execution processes across virtual and global networks is a critical success factor for today’s businesses. This necessitates tight information integration across business functions and a strong alignment between the business and Information Technology functions. However, in reality, there is a distinct misalignment between these two functions, and a relative lack of understanding of the value that digital technologies can bring in form of top‐line and bottom‐line impacts. As the scale of digital investments grow and new disruptive technologies such as Big Data, Analytics, IoT, AI, Cloud and Social Media gain prominence, executives need to understand this ‘rift’ better, align Digital strategy with business strategy, and assess, in clear terms, the tangible and non‐tangible benefits that digital technologies can bring. The focus of this course is to critically understand and evaluate the above topics. This is an integrative course that connects business strategy, process analysis, digital apability development requirements, capital budgeting, project management and change management concepts to develop a clear framework and process for discovering the value potential of digitalization and ensuring value realization from investments in digital technologies.

OPIM624 Decision Analysis

The objective of this course is to introduce Management Science, which is the application of the scientific method to managerial and personal decision-making.  The management science approach consists of defining a problem, developing a model, acquiring data, developing a solution, testing the solution, analyzing results and implementing results.  The course will first introduce briefly ‘problem structuring’ to understand the problem situation. Modeling the problem situation will then be taken up. Decision models can be categorized as Prescriptive, Predictive and Descriptive. This course will discuss some Prescriptive and Descriptive models. The course complements the pre-study course “Quantitative Methods” which mainly focuses on Predictive and Descriptive modeling. To be specific, this course will introduce quantitative modeling tools such as linear programming, integer programming, network modeling and simulation.

OPIM626 Risk Management in Global Supply Chains

A supply chain comprises firms, organizations, and individuals, linked through physical (material), information and financial flows, and whose activities enable products and services to be created and reach the consumers. In the last few decades, supply chain managers have reoriented their focus beyond the traditional logistics issues towards the development of integrated risk management approaches to handle the multiplicity and magnitude of risk factors in global supply chains. These risk factors include disruptions arising from natural and man-made disasters, fast-changing customer preferences, tight financial credit environments and fluctuating exchange rates and commodity prices. Building a functional supply chain requires careful planning and consideration of a variety of risks, and it is of paramount importance to integrate management of physical flows, information and financial flows in dealing with such risks. All logistics and supply chain organizations that effectively manage their supply chain risks enjoy a level of robustness and resilience that leads to unprecedented levels of operational excellence with all consequential advantages. The objective of this course is to outline a portfolio of proven strategies to access, reduce, hedge, and mitigate supply chain risks.  

OPIM631 Service and Operations Analytics

The increasing availability of data is changing the way organizations are thinking about themselves and the way they interact with the world. Data is helping improve the profits of businesses, the quality of life of individuals, the performance of sports teams, and social interactions. In this course, you will learn how to use data and analytics to improve the service and operations of the organisations. The course will expose students to real-world examples of how analytics is being used from various domains in managing operations and service delivery, e.g., product quality control, revenue management. Through these examples, you will learn how to use tools of analytics such as linear regression, logistic regression, classification and regression trees, random forests, optimization, and visualization techniques in practice. The statistical software R will be used in the course, and class demo will be presented in R Markdown Notebook. Students are encouraged to create their assignments and practices using R Markdown Notebook.

IE-SMU Master of Business Administration (IE-SMU MBA)

MGMT619 Managing Innovation and Growth

Necessity is the mother of invention. One reason for firms to innovate is the necessity to re-invent themselves and get out of stagnation: the industry has either gotten obsolete, or competitors have adopted newer and more efficient business models, and products or services based on more advanced technologies. Innovation is then a necessity as the firm has to innovate or perish, one only has to look at what happened to Blockbuster and Kodak. Blockbuster at one point of time was the leading media rental firm in the world, but they chose to ignore innovation in the way they were delivering their media content to customers. As Netflix gained scale, Blockbuster’s inability to innovate meant that their business model was obsolete, and they had no choice but to file for bankruptcy. Kodak is another famous example: Steven Sasson at Kodak invented the digital camera way back in the 1970s, but rather than developing and commercializing the innovation, Kodak chose to put the new technology on the backburner, as its commercialization would have meant that their existing business model that relied on chemical printing of photographs would have to be cannibalized. However, other competitors jumped on the bandwagon for competitive advantage: hence, if you do not pursue innovation, your competitors will make you obsolete someday, no product or business model has an eternal shelf life. Innovation has many dimensions: it creates value for existing customers, thereby letting you keep your current market share; it creates value for new customers, enabling you to get growth; it enables you to work with new processes to access a lower cost base; supplier innovation enables you to leverage partners’ innovation capabilities to offer value to customers, and capture value for yourself. So the notion of continuous improvement is indeed extendable to continuous innovation, the business world in all sectors moves on a treadmill; the pace of the treadmill is faster in some industries like technology and fashion, and slower in some other industries. Innovation is the lever that enables you to keep pace on the treadmill if you are at the industry average; and enables you to set the pace if you innovate at a faster rate than the industry average. If you stand still on the treadmill or run at a slower pace than the treadmill in a competitive environment, at some stage, you will be thrown off the treadmill.

This course should be of particular interest to people aspiring for a career in designing and managing for innovation, either directly (e.g., V.P. of R&D, R&D Manager) or indirectly (e.g., management consulting). The course will also be useful to SME proprietors and entrepreneurs who intend to serve new markets, or use new technologies, or participants who wish to strategically reposition their offerings in an existing market. The course should also be of interest to people who manage interfaces between innovation and business functions such as finance, marketing, managerial accounting and human resources.

MGMT685 Team Projects

The Team Projects course provides MBA students the opportunity to engage in self-directed learning in a real-world business environment with the support of a faculty advisor. Students work in teams of five to seven students and are engaged to create strategic change at client organizations. The client defined projects last approximately 10 months and can range from best practice implementation, process improvement, new product/service design, expansion planning, market entry, to design and implementation of specific functional strategies (HR, marketing, operations, etc.). Teams are required to apply the principles of evidence-based management to the specified business opportunity at the client organization. A team project will involve data collection, data analysis, best-practice research, action planning, implementation and evaluation. The main objective in this course is for students to gain confidence in managing a wide range of real-world business projects by enhancing their research, analysis, thinking, planning, project management, communication, collaboration, negotiation and presentation skills in a real high-stakes setting.

OPIM622 Project Management

Project management is a key component of strategy implementation. Analysts are keenly aware of this and closely monitor the performance of key projects when they evaluate companies. Also, in the knowledge-based economy, projects are responsible for a large proportion of value generation and many traditional organizations are being transformed into “project-based-organizations.” As a result, general managers need to understand project management best practice, not only because they may oversee important projects but also because they need to be good ‘consumers’ of projects.
This course provides an overview of project management best practice. We will use the first three sessions of the course to summarize the “traditional” project management techniques learned over the last 30 years. We will then discuss different management approaches for different kinds of projects, with different priorities and different levels of uncertainty. Finally we will examine how companies organize projects in collaboration with suppliers.

This course is targeted at managers who need to lead or oversee important and challenging business projects. The course is not focused on technical project management, but rather on the organizational issues surrounding it. The course combines cases, exercises, simulations lectures, and discussions, using relevant observations and experiences of the students in the class.

MSc in Innovation (MI)

MGMT6006 Management of Technological innovations

This course introduces students to issues pertaining to the management of technological innovations. Innovations in technology hold huge potential to improve the daily life of ordinary citizens, but can also be risky and uncertain a priori. Case studies of such innovations will be examined, and tools to manage these risks and uncertainties explained. In addition, the role of network effects and lock-in for technological innovations, as well as retaliatory actions from competitors will be discussed.

MGMT665 Supply Chain and Partnership Management

This course introduces basic concepts that facilitate effective management of companies’ supply chains and their business partners. A key aspect of this course is to appreciate the importance of holistically managing one’s stakeholder network in support of strategic innovation management and successful commercialization. Topics include supply chain strategies, business model innovations, e-commerce fulfillment, and omni-channel distribution. The course will be taught in forms of lectures, in-depth case-study discussions, in-class simulations, and a group project. The students are expected to carefully read the assigned cases and come prepared to class.

MSc in Management (MiM)

MGMT686 Digital Business Essentials: Innovations and Operations

The world of commerce is going rapidly beyond brick and mortar, and is increasingly relying on digital technology. Today, customers expect a consistent buying experience across all retail channels - in store, on the web, and on mobile devices. This leads to a host of business models that require or can benefit from new functional expertise and processes. The objective of this course is to provide students with the necessary skills to evaluate the changing business world, and identify opportunities to harness and optimize businesses through digital technology. The course would focus discussion around digital business and would cover aspects relating to business strategies, digital business supply chains, fulfillment technology and innovations, technology leverage for management, and consumer insights.  Specifically, the course consists of two parts: (i) business strategies and operational challenges for digital business and (ii) disruptive innovations and the applications of business analytics to digital business. The course will be an eight-week elective with each part covered over four weeks. 

OPIM617 Operations and Supply Chain Management

This course presents the design of new supply chains and the restructuring of existing supply chains to be sustainable and provide better value in a global context. We will analyze the design of innovative supply chains that provide firms with a strategic and sustainable competitive advantage, that utilize global resources and markets.

This course should be of particular interest to people aspiring for a career in designing and managing business processes, either directly (e.g., V.P. of Operations, Logistics Manager) or indirectly (e.g., management consulting). The course will also be useful to entrepreneurs who intend to serve new markets, or use new technologies, or participants who wish to strategically reposition their offerings in an existing market. The course should also be of interest to people who manage interfaces between operations and other business functions such as finance, marketing, managerial accounting and human resources.

OPIM618 Decision Analysis

The objective of this course is to introduce Decision Analysis, which is the application of the scientific method to managerial and personal decision-making.  The decision analysis approach of analysing decisions consists of defining a problem, developing a model, acquiring data, developing a solution, testing the solution, analyzing results and implementing results.  Decision models can be categorized as Prescriptive, Predictive and Descriptive. This course will discuss some Prescriptive and Descriptive models. To be specific, this course will introduce quantitative modeling tools such as linear and integer programming, decision tree analysis and simulation.

OPIM628 Business Analytics and Quantitative Methods

The increasing availability of data is changing the way organizations are thinking about themselves and the way they interact with the world. Data is helping improve the profits of businesses, the quality of life of individuals, the performance of sports teams, and social interactions. In this course, you will learn how to use data and analytics to assist in the decision-making process. The course will expose students to real-world examples of how descriptive, predictive, diagnostic, and prescriptive analytics are used in various domains. Through these examples, you will learn how to use tools of analytics such as linear regression, logistic regression, classification and regression trees, random forests, clustering, matching, and visualization techniques in practice. The statistical software R will be used in the course, and class demonstration will be presented in R Notebooks. Students are encouraged to create their home works and project reports using R Notebooks.

OPIM629 Successful Project Management

In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations structure and implement strategies as a portfolio of projects. Simultaneously, individual projects have grown increasingly complex to manage as greater speed-to-market is required, stakeholders become more demanding, and product complexity rockets. Thus, managers need to understand project management best practice and know the tools and techniques to deal with technical and behavioural project challenges.

This course aims to impart the students with the “soft” (behavioural) and “hard” (analytical) tools necessary to successful project management. We will cover topics including project selection, valuation, planning, contracting, scheduling, monitoring, and control. The students will learn to use state-of-art project management tools such as ProjectLibre for project planning and Argo for risk management. The course’s learning methods include cases, exercises, readings, lectures and group projects.

OPIM632 Sustainable Operations

The objective of this course is to study how a company can use its operations to improve environmental performance and contribute to business success at the same time. Companies such as Nike, Unilever, Coca-Cola and DHL have started doing so by building sustainability into their operations. A focus on reducing environmental impact not only allows these companies to comply with increased regulations but also to reduce their costs, to improve the quality of their products and to enhance the reputation of their brands. In this course, students will learn how citizens, governments, customers and employees are creating pressures for more sustainable development and how operations managers are responding to these pressures with waste reduction, pollution prevention, and product stewardship. Students will also study specific tools and methods such as environmental management systems, life cycle analysis, green buildings, green purchasing, design-for-environment, recycling, remanufacturing, and industrial symbiosis. Through the course students will also learn how to craft a successful strategy for sustainable operations by incorporating it into a company’s business strategy, improvement planning, product and process design, supply management, risk management and both internal and external reporting systems.

OPIM633 Online Business and Marketplaces

With the convenience of the Internet at our fingertips, e-commerce has grown into a huge industry and the world of business is changing rapidly beyond brick and mortar. Customers not only shop through different retail channels - in store, on the web, and through Apps on mobile devices, but also expect a consistent buying experience across these channels. This creates a host of new business models, such as online marketplaces, platforms, and omni-channel retailing, that require new sets of skills and concepts to manage. The objective of this course is to provide students with these necessary skills and concepts. Topics that will be discussed include online retailing, online marketplaces and platforms, analytics and AI, logistics and technologies for online retailing, and omni-channel retailing.

OPIM635 Operations Management

Companies produce and deliver goods or services to meet customer demand through various operations. In this course, students discover how the operations of any organization can be designed, analysed and improved to lift its performance, whether the organization is a bank, a hospital, a resort, a manufacturing plant, or a fashion retailer. The course will explain how operations management skills can be used to reduce costs, lower inventories, cut waiting times, improve quality, enhance service levels, and increase revenues and company profits. Specifically, students will gain practical knowledge of process analysis and design, demand forecasting, supply chain design, inventory management, logistics and sustainability. With a focus on the core trade-offs that govern operations management, the course offers the necessary foundation to create and manage sustainable operations that create a lasting competitive advantage in a global context.

This course should be of particular interest to people aspiring for a career in designing and managing business processes, either directly (e.g., V.P. of Operations, Logistics Manager) or indirectly (e.g., management consulting). The course will also be useful to entrepreneurs who intend to serve new markets, or use new technologies, or participants who wish to strategically reposition their offerings in an existing market. The course should also be of interest to people who manage interfaces between operations and other business functions such as finance, marketing, managerial accounting and human resources.

PhD in Business (Operations Management)

OPIM700 Linear Optimisation

The course takes a unified view of optimisation models in operations research and covers the main areas of application and the main optimisation algorithms. It includes the following topics: Linear Optimisation, Network Flows, Discrete Optimisation, Conic Optimisation and Stochastic Optimisation.

OPIM701 Probability and Statistics

The world is full of unpredictability. An important part of business management study is on how to make good decisions under uncertainty. Probability and statistics provide the theoretical foundation for advanced study in almost every research field in business, economics, and information systems. This course serves as a graduate-level introductory course. Topics covered in this course include combinatorial analysis, axioms of probability, conditional probability, random variable, expectation, limit theorem, simulation, descriptive statistics, sampling, confidence interval, hypothesis test, and regression.

OPIM702 Foundations of Operations Management

Operations Management (OM) is the design and management of the processes that transform inputs into finished goods or services. World-class performance in operations is essential for a company’s competitive success and long-term survival. This translates into a continuous search for ideas to improve a company’s operations. The objective of this course is to give doctoral students a solid foundation in the models and principles that are necessary to generate improvement ideas. This course is designed to expose doctoral students to the current and emerging research topics in operations management. In the process, we will get exposed to a few seminal articles that have been selected based on evidence of a novel approach to either domain knowledge and/or research methods.

OPIM703 Dynamic Programming

This course covers the theory and application of dynamic programming (DP), i.e. optimal sequential decision making in the presence of uncertainty. It is intended for students who are interested in applying dynamic programming in the research.  This course will lay the mathematical foundations for dynamic programming, introduce the theory, and explore applications drawn from inventory management, revenue management, supply chain management, commodity storage management, retail operations, etc. This course will also touch upon approximation dynamic programming techniques for large-scale problems. This course will focus on discrete time and stochastic problems.

OPIM704 Stochastic Models

Stochastic models deal with the modelling and analysis of the behaviour of systems that evolve randomly over time. This Ph.D.-level course will survey the important tools of stochastic processes to understand and control the behavior of systems under uncertainty. Applications to business problems related to managing inventory, waiting lines, reliability and others will be discussed.

OPIM705 Topics in Advanced Optimisation Techniques

The objective of this course is to introduce students to convex optimisation and some advanced optimisation problems. 

OPIM706 Topics in Game Theory and Its Applications

Game theory is the analysis of situations in which the payoff of a decision maker depends not only on his own actions but also on those of others. It is a standard analytical tool in social sciences. This course is designed to introduce students to the basics of game theory and its applications in business research. It aims to deepen students’ understanding of strategic interaction between firms. Basic concepts such as dominance, Nash equilibrium, backward induction, asymmetric information, adverse selection, and signalling are discussed in the course. The classic literature in business and management is used to illustrate the concepts. 

OPIM730 Pro-Seminar in Operations Management

The purpose of this course is to introduce area members’ main research topics and interests to the new PhD students. Each week one or two faculty members will present their research work so as to expose incoming PhD students to interesting problems in the field. It is envisaged that this course will jump start the matching process between students and PhD supervisors.

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

MGMT720 Supply Chain Innovation

Businesses create value by supplying their products or services to satisfy customer demand. This involves acquiring and organizing resources as well as partnering with suppliers in such a way that the targeted range of products and services are delivered to customers dependably in a costly and timely manner. A common challenge is the inflexible nature of supply and demand, which creates mismatches between the available supply and the customer demand. This leads to severe economic consequences on account of unsatisfied customers or wasted resources. To overcome this challenge and to maintain a competitive position, businesses need to constantly design and implement appropriate operational and supply chain capabilities.  In this course, we will study operations strategy, including manufacturing strategy and the resource based view of the firm, the management of global operations, the role of senior operations executives in the firm, contemporary research in operations strategy, followed by techniques that limit the incidence and consequence of supply-demand mismatches. Throughout the course, the focus will be on how to develop a competitive set of operations and supply chain capabilities. Using research articles and examples from a wide range of industries, we will illustrate that firms that employ these techniques and principles enjoy a significant competitive advantage.

Doctor of Innovation (DI)

MGMT 711 Innovation Development

Part 1: This course provides an introduction to design thinking and design methods. Design techniques have become a popular means of teaching people how to innovate, and especially so for the early stages of innovation. The techniques are ideal for not only problem solving but also for problem finding. The main components are as follow:

• An introduction to the whole design thinking cycle via the Stanford “Wallet exercise” (or the design of its equivalent), which roughly follows the observation/ideate/prototype process.
• An introduction to field research techniques (primarily, interviewing and observational study).
• Ideation techniques such as brainstorming, and its comparison with a few other ideation techniques.
• Rough or low fidelity (so-called) prototyping methods using simple materials to achieve form and three-dimensionality, but without mechanical functionality.

Each session is followed by a more academic discussion that discusses topics such as the strengths and weaknesses of various techniques. Students will also be exposed to the design studies tradition.

Part 2: The second part of this course provides an overview of the innovation development process and the decisions that are made in the innovation development process. These decisions include:

• the product definition (conceptualization and specifications to be included in the product), the sharpness/fuzziness of the definition, the timing of the definition.
• the design and formation of innovation teams, building trust between the different partners, and the role of diversity, and
• the management of risk in new product development, and the study of risk management practices.

Business Core Courses

OPIM 101 Decision Analysis

The objective of this course is to introduce students to decision analysis, which is the application of the scientific method to managerial and personal decision-making. Selected decision analysis tools will be introduced to help making decisions in certain and uncertain environments, such as linear and integer programming, decision trees, and simulation. The usefulness of these tools will be illustrated through examples drawn from all functional areas of business. These example applications include capacity and inventory management, product assortment, sustainable transportation management, procurement management, and portfolio management.

OPIM 201 Operations Management

Companies produce and deliver goods or services to meet customer demand through various operations. In this course, students discover how the operations of any organization can be designed, analyzed and improved to lift its performance, whether the organization is a bank, a hospital, a resort, a manufacturing plant, or a fashion retailer.  The course reveals how operations management skills can be used to reduce costs, lower inventories, cut waiting times, improve quality, enhance service levels, and increase revenues and company profits.  Specifically, students will gain practical knowledge of process analysis and design, demand forecasting, capacity planning, workflow planning and control, inventory management, quality management, and lean operations. With a focus on the basic concepts that govern operations management, the course also provides the necessary foundation to pursue further development in business management.

OM Major Core Courses

OPIM 311 Service Processes

This course explores the dimensions of successful service firms through the use of case studies and lectures.  It prepares students for enlightened management and suggests creative entrepreneurial opportunities.  Outstanding service organizations are managed differently than their "merely good" competitors.  Actions are based on totally different assumptions about the way success is achieved.  The results show not only in terms of conventional measures of performance but also in the enthusiasm of the employees and quality of customer satisfaction.  Beginning with the service encounter, service managers must blend marketing, technology, people, and information to achieve a distinctive competitive advantage. As the service sector is the fastest-growing sector of the economy, this course is also intended to help students discover entrepreneurial opportunities.

OPIM 321 Supply Chain Management

Matching supply with demand is a primary challenge for a firm: excess supply is too costly, inadequate supply irritates customers. Matching supply to demand is easiest when a firm has a flexible supply process, but flexibility is generally expensive. In this course we will learn (1) how to assess the appropriate level of supply flexibility for a given industry and (2) explore strategies for economically increasing a firm’s supply flexibility. Lastly we will study coordination and incentives across multiple firms in a supply chain. While tactical models and decisions are part of this course, the emphasis is on the qualitative insights needed by general managers or management consultants. We will demonstrate that companies can use (and have used) the principles from this course to significantly enhance their competitiveness.

OM Major Electives

(Note: Not all electives will be offered every term)

OPIM 313 Project Management

This course aims to provide students with a sound understanding and knowledge of basic concepts and analytical skills critical to effective project management in any industry. The students will acquire a range of “soft” skills (behavioral) and “hard” (analytical) tools and techniques, and learn how to link theory to real-world projects. Topics covered include project selection, initiation, planning, implementation, control and evaluation. With the project life cycle in mind, topics such as the role of the project manager and organization, scheduling and resources allocation will also be covered.

OPIM 314 Logistics and Transportation Management

Transportation is an integral part of the global supply chain system. Goods cannot move on their own from supply points to demand locations, conferring transportation a central role in the global distribution of freight. Transportation creates value-add in a supply chain by performing the "moving" function in the physical distribution of products and it facilitates international trade and hence globalisation. In broader terms, transport connectivity is often referred to as the lifeline of a nation and is often a precondition for economic progress and development.

This course explores the business issues in the design and operation of international transportation systems and underlines their strategic importance to firms and the economy. It draws upon the disciplines of operations management, decision analysis and transport economics to present a holistic view of the theories and practices of transportation management. The course also discusses the core concepts and terminologies of road, air, rail, sea, and intermodal transportation, as well as the implications for contemporary supply chain management.

OPIM 318 Sustainable Operations

The objective of this course is to study how companies use their operations to improve environmental (and social) performance and contribute to business success at the same time. Many companies have started doing so by building sustainability into their operations. A focus on reducing environmental impact not only allows these companies to comply with increased regulations but also to reduce their costs, to improve the quality of their products, and to enhance the reputation of their brands. In addition, a new brand of companies is going beyond simply reducing negative externalities and actively tries to create a positive impact on the world.

In this course, students will learn how citizens, governments, customers, and employees are creating pressures for more sustainable development and how operations managers are responding to these pressures with waste reduction, pollution prevention, and product stewardship. Students will also study specific tools and methods such as environmental management systems, life cycle analysis, green buildings, green purchasing, design-for-environment, recycling, remanufacturing, servitization and industrial symbiosis. Through the course, students will also learn how to create a successful strategy for sustainable operations by incorporating sustainability considerations into business strategy, improvement planning, product and process design, supply management, risk management and both internal and external reporting systems.

OPIM 319 Operations Strategy

How did ZARA become one of the fastest growing and most profitable brands in fashion retailing?  How did Wal-Mart grow to be the world’s largest retailer?  Largely the answer is that ZARA and Wal-Mart view their operational capabilities as an important and integral part of their competitive advantage.  As do other successful companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Toyota, and Coca Cola, they invest strategically in physical plants and facilities, in process and information technology, in employees, suppliers, and distributor relationships, and perhaps most importantly, in organizational practices and know-how.  The objective of this course is to provide students with a set of qualitative frameworks and quantitative tools to analyze and guide the long-term, strategic decisions for a company’s operations function.

This course caters to those interested in management and business consulting, general management and operations careers. Finance specialists interested in assessing the risks, the opportunities, the competitive advantages, and ultimately the value embedded in a company’s operations will benefit from the course as well.

OPIM 322 High Performance Warehousing and Fulfillment

As the world becomes more globalized many companies achieve competitive advantage by paying substantial attention on effective supply chain design and operations. Warehouses are consolidation hubs of various products in a supply chain. To support business that covers a wide range of markets it is common for a warehouse to store thousands of products. These products pass through the warehouse in huge volume daily, and so it is important to run the warehouse efficiently. Besides the traditional storage function, warehouses are increasingly forced to perform responsive and accurate customer order fulfillment and other value-added services. High performance in product warehousing, order fulfillment, and value-added services becomes crucial to the success of many companies in today's competitive business environment. We will introduce various operation models that are theoretically appealing and practically feasible. Some case studies will also be discussed. This course is especially useful for those who are interested in consulting careers in supply chain management and logistics. 

OPIM 324 Global Supply Chains

Global Supply Chain refers to the cross-border organization of the activities required to produce goods or services and bring them to consumers through inputs and various phases of development, production and delivery (International Labour Organization). As global trade is dependent on global supply chain, companies make investment decisions to globalize, setting up production facilities overseas and sales offices beyond their domestic market. The key aspects for companies embarking on global Supply Chain involves cross-border sourcing, overseas production, global planning and international distribution, where the various components for a final product could be sourced from different parts of the world, and manufactured at one or multiple locations and have them distributed to different markets.

Managing a global supply chain is also no longer about driving down cost, but it is how companies can maintain their competitiveness and global supply chains has never been more challenging and disruptive in the current environment of pandemic and geo-political tensions. In addition, e-commerce has also changed the design for global supply chain as well. This course provides students with a practical lens and frameworks regarding global supply chain. Students learn the key concepts on global supply chain management, together with special topics on maritime logistics, technology and green supply chain that affects the development of global supply chain. Understanding them would enable the students to better appreciate the complexities when handling global supply chain activities in future.

Topics covered include: considerations for global sourcing, selection criteria for global production locations, planning in an uncertainty, volatility, complexity and ambiguity environment, various international methods of entry to overseas market, e-commerce distribution, incoterms and different modes of transportation, terms of payment, customs requirements, and maritime distribution network. Business cases and real-life examples will be used in the course. Industry speakers will be invited as guest lecturers to share the challenges and practical solutions relating to global supply chain. This course is highly relevant for the current business environment and is recommended for those interested in working for global companies managing cross-border business.

OPIM 325 Sales and Operations Planning

According to the well-established SCOR (Supply Chain Operation Reference) framework planning is a major process block in any supply chain. In today’s environment the importance of business planning is magnified by globalization (and thus more complex supply chains), volatility of demand and ever more demanding customers. Planning activities and tasks cut across the entire organization, and this course offers an approach to integrating all stakeholders’ inputs and driving decisions to deliver superior results for the company and a higher level of customer service.

The course offers a holistic understanding of S&OP, drilling into the key building blocks of the process (demand planning, supply planning, …), the stakeholders and KPIs. It also covers the technology available to support the process and discuss the approach to implement such a process in any company. Besides the theoretical foundation, the course brings several opportunities for hands-on experience via case studies, business simulation games and industry practitioner sharing sessions.

The Sale and Operations Planning course will equip students with sound knowledge of planning process in a company and how they drive the bottom-line results. This course is recommended to students with career ambitions in business planning, operation planning, consulting and general management.

OPIM 326 Service and Operations Analytics

The increasing availability of data is changing the way organizations are thinking about themselves and the way they interact with the world. Data is helping improve the profits of businesses, the quality of life of individuals, the performance of sports teams, and social interactions. In this course, you will learn how to use data and analytics to improve the service and operations of the organizations. The course will expose students to real world examples of how analytics is being used from various domains in managing operations and service delivery, e.g., product quality control, revenue management. Through these examples, you will learn how to use tools of analytics such as linear regression, logistic regression, classification and regression trees, random forests, clustering, optimization, and visualization techniques in practice. The statistical software R will be used in the course, and class demo will be presented in R Notebooks. Students are encouraged to create their assignment and project reports using R Notebooks.

OPIM 331 Computer Simulation

Computer simulation is a popular tool used by managers to analyze and understand complex systems. These systems can be an existing or a proposed facility that is too complex for traditional analytical tools. In this course, students will learn how to model business systems using commercial simulation software and to analyze and interpret the results.

This is a computer simulation programming course. Students are taught simulation through practices by building simulation models. The instructor will build and review some simulation models in class. Students are then expected to build their own simulation models. The success of this course will depend on the student’s personal involvement in making simulation a reality.

OPIM 341 Procurement and Strategic Sourcing

In today’s increasingly competitive and globalized world, firms are trying to find ways to improve their performance and differentiate themselves from their rivals. Clearly, suppliers can have great impact on a firm’s total cost and help in this differentiation process. Increased levels of outsourcing and offshoring make correct selection of suppliers and their quality, along with development of relationships between suppliers and producers, more crucial than ever. Whatever the supplier provides, the effective organization needs a robust system to procure the correct goods and services at the best possible price for the organization. Once the organization has made the decision to procure goods and services from another organization, both organizations must clearly define the parameters of the relationship. This course aims to provide students with an understanding of the impact that sourcing and supply management has on the success and profitability of firms in today’s business environment. This course will expose students to concepts and principles in strategic sourcing as pursued by leading edge firms. It will generate student interest in pursuing sourcing as a viable career opportunity, be it in retailing, manufacturing, government agencies or non-profit organizations. The course will provide applied learning opportunities in strategic sourcing through a combination of lectures, case analyses, and group exercises.

OPIM 343 Port-Focal Logistics and Maritime Operations

As much as 90% of world trade is carried via maritime transportation. A wide range of cargoes, each with their own specific handling and storage requirements, pass through the world’s ports and terminals every day. Port operations is a complicated business dealing with a number of disparate activities such as the movement of ships, containers, and other cargo, the loading and unloading of ships and containers, and customs activities. Efficient port operations are important to ensure the smooth transition of cargoes, so that these cargoes reach their destination on time.

This course introduces the functions of ports and their roles in contemporary logistics. With the intermodal advancements that lead to expanded but overlapping hinterlands, ports face competitive pressure. This course equips students with knowledge on port operations and how ports can provide value in the modern supply chain. The inter-related relationship among shipping lines, stevedores, port operators and the regulatory environment is discussed.

OPIM 344 Sustainable Shipping and Ports

International shipping and ports are fundamental to the achievement of world sustainable development. However, the challenges to shipping and ports in providing safe, secure, energy efficient, environmentally and climate friendly services that, at the same time, promote connectivity and trade and enables economic growth are complex and tremendous. These challenges call for a multi-stakeholder approach involving shipping companies, port authorities/port development companies, regulators, financial institutions, research institutions, and other relevant partners. This course addresses the sustainability imperative for shipping and ports and the various solutions that are available to the different industry stakeholders. Indeed, the shipping and ports industries have started to respond to the growing environmental and social concerns of regulators, customers and the local communities in which they operate, while at the same time increasingly recognizing that sustainability may provide for new business opportunities and profitability.

OPIM 346 Operations and Supply Chain Management in Healthcare

Given the trend of an aging population and rising healthcare costs in many countries around the world, it is important for healthcare service providers to minimise the costs of service delivery while maintaining high quality of health care services, patient satisfaction, safety and other important outcome measures. This course presents elementary operations management and supply chain management principles before applying them to the healthcare sector. Those topics include, but are not limited to, process optimization, capacity management, logistics, queuing, scheduling, and many more. The application of the operations management tools and methods needs to be tailored to the healthcare context, which the students will explore through a mix of case study discussions and guest speakers. The students will also independently explore an emerging topic in healthcare from an operations management perspective to gain a better understanding of future challenges and opportunities in this industry.

OPIM 347 Shipping Strategies - The Digital Dimensions (SSDD)

Digitalization is a critical component in the present and future of the maritime sector, not only in a technological manner but also as a strategic, cultural and political enabler of change. This course is about digitalization in shipping with a focus on the strategic level, which is the strategic responses to the digitalization of shipping. The course will be centered around three fundamental questions: 1) How and why does digitalization challenge and develop global shipping? 2) How and why do shipping companies create digital business models? 3) How and why does digitalization affect various shipping segments in different ways?

OPIM 348 Supply Chain Analytics

The increasing availability of data is changing the way a supply chain is managed. Supply chain analytics is where data analytics meet supply chain management. Given the conflicting objectives of efficiency and customer satisfaction, data-driven analysis can be useful in achieving supply chain excellence. In this course, you will learn the analytics tools and skills to diagnose and optimize a supply chain. In particular, you will learn how statistical tools and data-based optimization can help supply chain stay competitive and attain its leadership.

MGMT 108 Introduction to Business Analytics*

Technology enhancement has enabled the business world to produce and store very large amounts of data which needs to be processed, managed and analyzed to uncover its hidden value. These values have shown to be an asset to businesses, given its potential to improve the future performance. Companies that want to tap into this potential have to turn to Business Analytics, which helps to gain insights from data that improves business decisions.

This course aims to introduce students to the fundamental skills of Analytics. Using Excel as the main software, this course helps students build a foundation needed for advanced analytics by introducing them to data exploration techniques, preparing the data for analysis, understanding how to formulate and identify the correct analytical approach to solve the business problem. This course also introduces the use of analytics in related business problems from the areas of Finance, Marketing and Operations.

*Students who have taken Introduction to Business Analytics before AY19-20 Term 2 will be allowed to use the course to meet their respective major elective requirements. With effect from AY19-20 Term 2 offering onwards, Introduction to Business Analytics will only fulfil the major elective requirements for students with a declared Analytics track. If students who had earlier declared the Analytics tracks and have taken this course in and after AY19-20 Term 2 choose to drop out of the tracks, the course will no longer be used to fulfil the major elective, and it will be counted towards Free Elective. The student will need to take another course to fulfil the major elective. 

MGMT 317 Managing Process Improvement

All firms have processes, most of which can be improved or optimized.  Some of these processes include innovation, development, manufacturing, services, internal and external processes.  The ability of managers to define, measure, improve and control processes is a key skill set and, combined with leadership, can enhance the success of a firm.

In this course, students will develop a combination of practical tool knowledge and project management skills to effectively change and improve important processes.  Students will also gain a strong theoretical and practical understanding of six sigma deployment and will have the opportunity to achieve SMU Six Sigma “Greenbelt” certification.  Students will learn the DMAIC methodology (Design, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) and apply it in real projects.  These projects will be sponsored by local SME’s and MNC’s.

This course will also allow students to further develop and get feedback on the following SMU Graduate Learning Outcomes: critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, communication, self-directedness and meta-learning, and resilience and positivity (see https://cte.smu.edu.sg/smu-pedagogical-framework-graduate-learning-outcomes)