Operations Management Curricula: Literature Review and Analysis

A review and analysis of studies on the interface between Operations Management (OM) academicians and industry practitioners indicate the existence of a persistent gap between what is being taught and what is relevant to practitioners in their daily jobs. The majority of practitioner studies have been directed at upper management levels, yet academia typically educates students for entry level or management trainee (undergraduate) and mid-management (MBA) positions. A recurring finding was that academicians prefer to teach quantitative techniques while practitioners favor qualitative concepts. The OM curricula literature shows some disagreements between academicians concerning subject matter, and a wide variety of teaching opinions. This paper provides an extensive analytical review of OM curricula literature along with their respective authors’ conclusions. From this analysis we suggest a customer-focused business plan to close the gap between industry and academia. This plan can be modified to account for faculty teaching and research interests, local industry requirements and institution specific factors such as class sizes and resources

Orbital Launch Operations: Escape Window Analysis

The analysis of the gross aspects of the flight mechanics for lunar trajectories from orbital launch is presented. An attempt is made to define the launch requirements from an earth orbit, the geometrical relationships existing between an Orbital Launch Facility in earth orbit and the moon in its orbit, the departure trajectory sensitivity to energy and time requirements, the launch-on-time problem and the orbital "escape window"

Requirements modelling and formal analysis using graph operations

The increasing complexity of enterprise systems requires a more advanced analysis of the representation of services expected than is currently possible. Consequently, the specification stage, which could be facilitated by formal verification, becomes very important to the system life-cycle. This paper presents a formal modelling approach, which may be used in order to better represent the reality of the system and to verify the awaited or existing system’s properties, taking into account the environmental characteristics. For that, we firstly propose a formalization process based upon properties specification, and secondly we use Conceptual Graphs operations to develop reasoning mechanisms of verifying requirements statements. The graphic visualization of these reasoning enables us to correctly capture the system specifications by making it easier to determine if desired properties hold. It is applied to the field of Enterprise modelling

Information Management: A Consolidation of Operations, Analysis and Strategy

The book provides an exposition on the discipline of information management. It is organised into four parts. The first of these deals with factors that shape the meaning of information management - the professional associations that have formed; the science of information; and corporate approaches to consideration of information as an enterprise resource. The following three parts explain how information management is undertaken in three domains: operational, analytical and administrative. The operational domain details techniques that are concerned with processing information about information - the organising structures, finding aids, classification and retrieval systems, that make their respective information systems useable. The analytical domain is concerned with determining enterprise and user information requirements; undertaking requirements analysis; information audits; and evaluation of information operations. The administrative domain is concerned with the strategic approach – fostering effective utilisation of information and knowledge resources using a planning framework that aligns information services with that of an enterprise’s objectives and resourcing, and works effectively within constraints imposed by the broader regulatory and business environment

Operations analysis of gravity assisted rapid transit

Gravity assisted rapid transit (GART) with 6 percent grades before and after each station are compared with conventional systems in terms of energy consumption, run time, line capacity and schedule stability under abnormal circumstances. Parametric analyses of run times and energy consumption include the impact of alternate accelerating and braking levels. The capcity analysis uses a network simulation program to determine the location and severity of all signal delays. Based on results of initial simulations, the block design was revised to eliminate bottlenecks in normal operations. The systems are then compared at headways of 80 to 180 seconds. One month of incidence reports of a modern operating transit system are reviewed to determine the failures to be simulated. The impact of failures resulting in station delays (30 to 360 seconds), speed limit reduction (20 mph and 30 mph to one or more trains), vehicle performance (75 percent acceleration) are compared at scheduled headway of 90 to 180 seconds

Operations planning and analysis handbook for NASA/MSFC phase B development projects

Current operations planning and analysis practices on NASA/MSFC Phase B projects were investigated with the objectives of (1) formalizing these practices into a handbook and (2) suggesting improvements. The study focused on how Science and Engineering (S&E) Operational Personnel support Program Development (PD) Task Teams. The intimate relationship between systems engineering and operations analysis was examined. Methods identified for use by operations analysts during Phase B include functional analysis, interface analysis methods to calculate/allocate such criteria as reliability, Maintainability, and operations and support cost