Spring, 2016
SCM 352 -- OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Section 1001: Tues, Thurs 9:30-10:45
Section 1002: Tues, Thurs 11:00-12:15
ABB 109
MIKC 107
Dr. Ron Lembke
Office:
BB310D
Phone:
(775) 682-9164
Email:
ronlembke@unr.edu
Homepage: http://business.unr.edu/faculty/ronlembke
Office Hours: Tues, Thurs 12:15-1:00 pm, Thurs 6:15-7:00 pm
Course Materials:
1. TEXT: Practical Operations Management, Simpson and Hancock, Hercher Publishing, 2013
http://hercherpublishing.com/SimpsonHancock_POM.html
http://hercherpublishing.com/Student_Direct_Purchase.html
2. PPT: Powerpoint lecture notes will be available for download, the day of class, at the URL listed above.
http://business.unr.edu/faculty/ronlembke
3. WebCampus: There will be Cases and HW on the WebCampus page. http://wcl.unr.edu
4. K drive: Any spreadsheets we make in class will be available immediately after class on the CoB “K
drive.” Which can be found at http://www.business.unr.edu/labs/cvfs/cvfs.html
Tests will be open note, open book. I’m not big on memorizing numbers, so if there are things like a standard
normal table, that you might want to have access to during the test, I will provide those for you. But things like
formulas of how to do some kind of calculation, you might want to print out those pages of the book, or those
powerpoint slides.
Course Pre-Requisites: The student must have passed the necessary prerequisite course in Statistics. Concepts
covered in that course such as marginal analysis, probability distributions, and spreadsheets, are the foundations
of the methods and concepts used to analyze and build many of the management decision models in production
and operations management. Students are expected to bring to the course a current knowledge of these basic
concepts. The schedule of the course does not provide time to review concepts and methods already presented
in the prerequisite courses.
COURSE OBJECTIVES The objective of the course is for students to appreciate the important role that
Operations play in the success of any company. Students will learn how to apply quantitative decision analysis
tools to many of the decisions related to operations, including managing inventories, deciding where to locate
facilities, and how to layout the interior of the facilities.
SCM 352 also contributes towards the following College of Business Learning Goals:
Learning Goal 2. Students will possess analytical and critical thinking skills
Student Learning Objective 3: Students will be able to develop, analyze and interpret a quantitative decision
support model (to be done in inventory management)
Learning Goal 4. Students will be able to use information technology to support business analysis and
operations
Student Learning Objective 2. Students will utilize technology to complete a comprehensive managerial analysis
project (to be done in Linear Programming)
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Since SCM 352 is a pre-requisite for MGT 496, the College of Business Capstone course, SCM 352 helps MGT 496
satisfy the following Core Objective:
 CO12 Students will demonstrate understanding of the ethical principles in general or in application of
specialized knowledge, results of research, creative expression, or design processes. Students will
demonstrate an ability to recognize, articulate, and apply ethical principles in various academic,
professional, social, or personal contexts.
Specific discussions of ethics will take place in the context of the following chapter:
1. Introduction to Operations Management (Sustainability)
2. Competitive Strategy (Ethical practices)
9. Supply Chain Management (Ethical sourcing, monitoring of suppliers)
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
I encourage any student needing to request accommodations for a specific disability to please meet with me at
your earliest convenience to ensure timely and appropriate accommodations.
STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC HONESTY
Honesty and personal integrity are key facets of the University of Nevada community. The issue of academic
integrity is taken very seriously at the University and the College of Business. Since the majority of students take
pride in total academic integrity, it is hoped that you, as a student, will take action to influence the practice of
integrity in this class as well as your other classes. I understand that students feel pressure to perform well in
their classes, and I will do everything that I can to ensure that you have the resources necessary to succeed.
However, cheating on exams and course assignments will not be tolerated, and students who fail to comply with
the University’s policy on academic dishonesty, posted at http://www.unr.edu/studentconduct/policies/university-policies-and-guidelines/academic-standards/resolving-charges and will be
subject to the maximum university penalties. Please visit this website if you are unfamiliar with the University
policies on actions which constitute academic dishonesty. Projects and exams will result into an automatic
grade of F in the course. This may warrant further disciplinary action in consultation with the Dean and the Chair
of the Department.
Academic Dishonesty: A uniform policy across Business courses has been adopted. "Any form of cheating in
assignments, projects and exams will result into an automatic grade of F in the course."
UNR has developed the following definitions, posted on the UNR website: Academic dishonesty is defined as:
cheating, plagiarism or otherwise obtaining grades under false pretenses. Plagiarism is defined as submitting the
language, ideas, thoughts or work of another as one's own; or assisting in the act of plagiarism by allowing one's
work to be used in this fashion.
Cheating is defined as
1. obtaining or providing unauthorized information during an examination through verbal, visual or
unauthorized use of books, notes, text and other materials;
2. obtaining or providing information concerning all or part of an examination prior to that examination;
3. taking an examination for another student, or arranging for another person to take an exam in one's
place;
4. altering or changing test answers after submittal for grading, grades after grades have been awarded, or
other academic records once these are official.
http://www.unr.edu/student-conduct
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COURSE GRADING:
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3
Class Participation
HW and Cases (WCL)
Paper
100 pts.
100 pts.
100 pts.
20 pts.
40 pts.
40 pts.
400 pts.
25 %
25 %
25 %
25 %
10 %
10 %
Exams: There will be three exams during the semester. The final is NOT cumulative. Each exam is worth 25% of
your course grade. Exams will always be handed back the lecture following the exam. Therefore, any make-ups
must be completed and returned to me before the exams are returned the next week. Make-ups will only be
allowed if you make arrangements with me prior to the exam. The instructor reserves the right to give pop
quizzes, worth an as-yet-unspecified portion of the final grade.
Exams will last for the full class period. Exams will be open book, but with only 75 minutes, you will not be able
to “study during the exam.” If you don’t know the material before the exam starts, you will not be able to learn
it during the exam.
Students may use calculators, but no computers, and definitely not the work of another student. Exams will be
open book, as mentioned, but NO COMPUTERS WILL BE ALLOWED. Remember that you will need to print out
any pages that you think you are going to need for the exam, because YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ACCESS YOUR
ELECTRONIC BOOK DURING THE EXAM. Any questions? No computers.
Most test questions will be in problem form, with exact solutions. Partial credit will be given in cases where the
error was computational and not conceptual. There will be some true / false, multiple-choice, or short written
questions.
If you can only parrot back answers exactly like the problems from the book, you won’t necessarily do well on the
tests, because you don’t really understand the problems and/or the solutions. But if you really understand the
problems and why the solutions are right and how they work, you should be in pretty good shape. You may
disagree, but my goal is for you to understand this stuff, not just to be able to pass a test on it.
Grading for the exams will conform to the +/- grading system approved by the Board of Regents: 100-93 (A), 9290 (A-), 89-87 (B+), 86-83 (B), 82-80(B-), 79-77(C+), 76-73(C), 72-70 (C-), 69-67 (D+), 66-63 (D), 62-60 (D-), 59-0 (F).
Homework: Because we will be studying so many topics, over such a wide area, homework is an important way
of reinforcing the topics. Homework problems will be assigned for the more quantitative chapters, and will be
turned in using WebCampus.
Cases: For several chapters, there are readings in WCL, and a “quiz” for you to fill out afterwards. The
WebCampus cases must be completed before class, so I can collate your responses for the classroom discussion.
Extra Credit: Just because you do badly on a test, or choose to not participate in class or do an assignment, I will
not give you any extra credit opportunities. On the other hand, if you do all of the cases and HW problems, you
can receive 60 pts instead of 40, which amounts to 20 pts of extra credit.
Participation: 5% of your grade will be based on participation. This will be based on your participation in
classroom discussions. Regarding in-class participation, the important thing to remember about this is that
Quality is much better than Quantity. You don’t need to worry about fighting for points because I am not
counting each comment with a stopwatch, but if you don’t contribute to the classroom discussion, you won’t do
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well in this part of your grade. I want you to actively participate in class, not sit there waiting for me to spoon
feed you or wake you up. If you sit there every week checking your email in the back of the room (thinking I will
never know) and never raise your hand and open your mouth, you can expect below 50%. If you offer a couple
of good questions or relevant comments per week, you’ll get something closer to 100%. Your grade will depend
on how close you are to either extreme.
I will also be tracking participation via a website called PollEverywhere, which will allow you to text in your
responses to questions I ask in class. In order for you to receive credit, it is important that you go to their
website, PollEverywhere.com, and create a free account, so I can know the name that goes with the cell phone
that is texting in responses. In class, we will talk about how you sign up and login to their website.
Paper: The focus of this course is how to manage operations. To show me how much you have learned in this
regard, I want you to write a paper looking at the operational decisions of some company you are familiar with.
This might be a company that you or a friend have worked for, or a company you are familiar with from having
been a customer there for years.
In the paper, I want you to look at the operational decisions of the company and discuss how the operational
decisions the company has made have helped or hindered their success. You should begin by discussing the
company’s strategy and how it seems to you they use operations to support that strategy.
You will want to look at many of the things we looked at in this course: location, layout, inventory, etc., etc. You
will probably find it helpful to compare your subject company’s decisions with those of its competitors.
Evaluate how those decisions have helped and hindered the company in its attempts to be both more effective
and more efficient.
If you can find quantitative information about any of these things, that could be very interesting, but it is not
required. Also, if you can find any written documentation about the company’s operations strategy (from a
corporate source like an annual report, or a magazine article), that could be very helpful.
Grammar is important. If you can’t write coherent English sentences, you shouldn’t expect to do well in your
career, and you shouldn’t expect to get a good grade on this paper, either.
Cite all of your information. Use endnotes, not footnotes.
The paper should be roughly 3-4 pages, with single spacing in each paragraph and double spaced between
paragraphs, 11 pt. font. (So basically, like this syllabus is laid out).
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PRELIMINARY SCHEDULE (as of week 1)
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