Industrial Management, TEK 250

2023/2024, study period 4

Examiner and lecturer:       Torbjörn Jacobsson, Senior Lecturer, Supply and Operations Management, Tel: 031-7725233, e-mail: torjac@chalmers.se

Lecturer: Ala Arvidsson, Associate professor, Supply and Operations Management, Tel: 031-7721372, e-mail: ala.pazirandeh@chalmers.se

Mode of instruction: On-site, supervision and communications will also be facilitated through Canvas and Zoom

Examination dates:

• Wednesday 29 Maj 2024, 14:00, Johanneberg, Digital
• Friday 30 Aug 2024, 14:00, Johanneberg, Digital

Course aims

The aim of this course is to give the students knowledge of industrial organization and operations management and elaborate on how management of the production/operations can contribute to companies’ sustainable competitive advantage and long-term success. The course also aims to provide the students with appropriate theories, tools and models to manage and develop production systems, products and services and to develop and evaluate operations and business strategies in different industrial settings.

Content

The course will cover the field of industrial management from mainly a production/operations management perspective, i.e. the activity of managing the resources, which are devoted to the production of products and services. Every organization has an operations function because every organization produces some type of products and/or services. However, from an operations management perspective, the firm is not only viewed as a production system, but also a part of a value chain of suppliers, sub-suppliers, system integrators and customers. The course will cover central areas in the field of industrial- and operations management in order to give the student a comprehensive view of industrial and operations management. Among the issues covered are:

• Operations management
• Lean Production
• Operations strategy
• Process, product and service design
• Supply Chain Management
• Process technology
• Job design and work organization
• Planning and control
• Operations improvement and Total Quality Management

Course objectives

The main objective of the course is to improve participants' ability to develop and analyze companies’ operations and production systems. By the end of the course, participants will hopefully:

• Understand the strategic impact and importance of industrial and operations management
• Have been introduced to the central areas of industrial and operations management.
• Have access to theories, framework and models to develop, design and evaluate production systems and companies’ operations and business strategies.
• Have been stimulated to think critically about emerging concepts and ideas in the field of industrial and operations management.

Organization

The course will be organized around the central themes in operations management. We will use reflective and implementation learning to illustrate the challenges facing the management of operations. The students will both learn and be examine based on mandatory assignments in which central topics in the area of industrial and operations management will be analyzed and discussed in detail. Each module (lecture + assignment + supervision of assignments) of the course will:

• start with a short intro to the topic and the assignment,
• students will then get the assignment for that module that will facilitate their reading and learning,
• individual hand ins on the assignments will be graded pass or fail
• each module will then be concluded with a Q&A session and some general reflections

The theoretical content of the course is defined by the course literature. Compared to pure technological subjects the course literature is quite extensive, and some parts of the literature are real world examples meant to give an illustration to facilitate better understanding.

Literature

Book: Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. & Burgess, N. (2022), Operations Management (Tenth Edition), Pearson Education. (available at “Store”, Chalmers, Camus.)

E-book/Journal via Chalmers library:

1. Liker och Meier, D. (2006), The Toyota Way fieldbook: a practical guide for implementing Toyota´s 4Ps, McGrewHill. Start on page 6-7, “How the Book is organized” with the description of the 4P model (Philosophy, Proces,…) and then continue with pages 8-14 ”Overview of the Toyota Way principles”.
2. Bellgran, M and Safsten, K., (2010), Production development: design and operation of production systems, London; New York: Springer. (First chapter)

Additional literature may be distributed during classes or published at the course website.

Examination - written examination and individual assignments

The examination consists of a written examination (max 50 points). All literature, handouts and lectures form a base for the written exam.

Grade 3, 20-29 points, >= 40%

Grade 4, 30-39 points, > = 60%

Grade 5, 40-50 points, >= 80%

In order to complete the course, the students must both pass the assignments and get approved written examination.