BA 204
Introduction to Operations Management
Spring 1996

University of California, Berkeley
Walter A. Haas School of Business

Course Faculty:

Dr. Sara L. Beckman, F575, (510) 642-1058, beckman@haas.berkeley.edu
Class Hours: W 2-4, W 4-6, Th 2-4, Th 4-6, 210 Cheit Hall
Office Hours: Wednesday, 12 - 2
Admin Support: Kathy Johnson, (510) 642-0119, kathy@haas.berkeley.edu

Teaching Assistants:

Chris Lahey, lahey@haas.berkeley.edu
Clark Howard, howard@haas.berkeley.edu
Section Hours: M x-x x-x x-x x-x

To pursue these objectives most effectively, we will require you to prepare cases and discuss them in class, prepare written analyses of cases and problem sets, participate in both computer-based and physical simulations and exercises, and complete a project with a local company.

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In a typical class session, one or more students will be asked to begin discussion of a selected topic. If you have thoroughly prepared the case and/or readings you should have no difficulty in handling such a lead-off request. Questions for each class session provided in this syllabus will guide your thinking about the readings and cases. During case discussions, we will build a complete analysis of the case situation and address the problems and issues it presents. We will ask students to make recommendations, and will discuss the implementation of those recommendations. Frequently, the final portion of the class will be a lecture/discussion of concepts and techniques brought out in the case or reading, but useful in a much broader range of situations.

Development of verbal skills is given a high priority in this course. The classroom should be considered a laboratory in which you can test your ability to present your analyses and recommendations clearly, to convince your peers of the correctness of your approach to complex problems, and to illustrate your ability to achieve the desired results through the implementation of that approach.

Some of the criteria that we will use to judge effective class participation for grading purposes include:

• Is the participant a good listener?
  
  
• Are points made relevant to the current discussion? Are they linked to the comments of other?
  
  
• Do the comments show clear evidence of appropriate and insightful analysis of the case data?
  
  
• Is there a willingness to participate?
  
  
• Is there a willingness to test new ideas, or are all comments safe?
  
  
• Do comments clarify and highlight the important aspects of earlier comments and lead to a clearer statement of the concepts being covered?

You can expect to review materials that will be useful to you in completing the assignments during Monday sections. Written assignments are due at the START OF CLASS on the case or reading discussion date. (If your group contains members from multiple sections, the assignment is due at the start of the FIRST section containing a group member.) Hand in only one copy of the assignment per group. The assignment questions in the detailed course outline should be used to guide your thinking, but are not necessarily the only issues that you should address.

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Please be prepared for every class. Since we frequently call on individuals whose hands are not raised, you should let the instructor know before class if an emergency has made it impossible for you to prepare adequately. In these situations, we still encourage you to attend.

To help the faculty and teaching assistants to learn your names as quickly as possible, we ask that you use your namecards regularly. We will also establish a seating chart for the class.

Group work is encouraged for purposes of general class preparation and for the written assignments. You should not, however, benefit from anyone who has already participated in a faculty-led discussion of the case at Haas or any other school.

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