Category: Guest Posts

Guest Post: Student Perspectives on the MyOMLab Project Management Simulation

Wende Huehn-Brown is Professor of Supply Chain Management at St. Petersburg College in Florida. She continues her review of our five OM simulations.

This post will focus on the Project Management simulation which uses a construction industry scenario. (My post last month looked at the forecasting simulation).The majority of students felt this simulation reflected how things likely worked for a project manager, even finding the pressure to perform engaging and realistic.

Students get immersed in planning needs and quickly learn decisions cannot be focused on profit entirely to achieve customer expectations. Making decisions and seeing the consequences of those decisions was viewed a valuable learning experience. The process of evaluating feedback is practical and several students reflected the need to better plan their life similarly!

Students often see many job opportunities in project management. This simulation gives them an appreciation for what they do, as well as how unforeseen circumstances beyond their ability to control are likely necessitating attention back to their critical path. One student even commented that he now understands his own need to be more flexible adjusting plans at home.

In this simulation, half of the students said they completed the simulation more than once as they felt motivated to better master the lesson. Students often mentioned their ‘light bulb’ moment was when they discovered they did not plan enough slack early in the project. Learning that trying to offset plans around natural disasters and other issues was much harder to fix later in the project.

About 30% of the students mentioned using Excel to plan and track progress. They found the simulation a great extension, building upon what they learned in the study plans and other MyOMLab assignments. While many found this virtual simulation challenging, the majority of the students felt enlightened and appreciated the opportunity to test their project management skills.

Guest Post: Student Perspective on the MyOMLab Forecasting Simulation

Wende Huehn-Brown is Professor of Supply Chain Management at St. Petersburg College in Florida.

This post is a followup on my prior Guest Post (April 15, 2019). Today, I would like to share my students’ perspective on the forecasting simulation in MyOMlab. It deals with the retail industry as operations consultant. The students enjoyed this because of their own experiences in retail and as customers.

I teach this class online and having further online resources in MyOMlab to enable student learning is great! Sure, I have hundreds of pencasts and tutorials on doing the analytics, but the simulations are a practical approach to learning the lessons. Do you remember using a graphing calculator? I don’t, so was surprised to have 40% of the students talking about that old forecasting method! They also commented on how they learned to use ExcelOM and found it more accurate and faster with less steps.

Not only does the simulation provide students with further insight on applying the lesson and using technology for analytics, but also the events that happen during the simulation are realistic. Many of my students commented on connecting this simulation to the real world was quite enlightening to consider how the events may affect supply and demand–such as how external conditions can affect market prices.

They also got quite excited when they saw their accuracy improve, even to 0% error. If you can keep the MAPE relatively low, you even get a $10,000 bonus in the simulation. 60% of the students commented on how this imaginary bonus helped to motivate them and keep them focused on achieving the 10% MAPE goal. I guess even in a simulation incentives are motivating!

Students enjoyed how the simulation made learning fun. Several students commented how they want to plan more time to do it again to further improve. One student reflected on a on a key lesson he learned regarding wasting time with non-algorithmic solutions. The simulation showed him to have more faith in his spreadsheet modeling skills.

Guest Post: Have You Assigned Students the MyOMLab Simulations?

Our Guest Post comes from Wende Huehn-Brown, who is Professor of Supply Chain Management at St. Petersburg College in Florida.

Previous posts on this blog site have focused on use of Heizer/Render/Munson’s five MyOMLab simulations in physical classroom situations. I am constantly trying to adapt what I do in my face-to-face classes for my entirely online students. This semester I piloted using these simulations for an alternative submission– 50% of the students chose to complete them.

My first concern: Will my students have the same ‘get it’ perspective Dr. Amy Peterson shared in her post on this blog? Some of my online students get overwhelmed with Pearson MyLabs, while other students enjoy the flexible learning environment as they juggle school around the rest of their busy lives. But if new technology is confusing or unreliable it can be a road block to their success. So I waited to adopt the simulations until I could see how they perform.

In our online classes we have built a set of pencasts and tutorials for each week’s lesson to substitute for physical classroom learning opportunities. (See my prior Guest Post.) We continue to grow various learning resources and hold our student success rates steady. Initially, there was apprehension to adopt these simulations over fears of increasing the workload on our students.

Student feedback said the simulations were the most exciting part of the class! They perceived them practical as they could relate to the scenarios and felt the knowledge and skill was applicable in the real-world and to help them grow their careers. Several participants suggested this alternative should become a required assignment as it pushed them to a higher level of critical thinking. I will provide specific feedback on each of the five simulations in the coming months!

Guest Post: How Students Link Sustainability and Global Strife

Brent Snider is Teaching Professor, Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary.

Rosanna Cole is a Lecturer in Sustainable Supply Chain Management, University of Surrey.

The global business environment has become increasingly turbulent, with international alliances and trading blocs fragmenting, extreme political candidates gaining popularity, climate change intensifying, all as the growth of developing economies declines and civil instability grows in many regions.

We recently surveyed more than 200 undergrad and graduate (exec MBAs) business students in Alberta about their views on business, sustainability and this turbulence. We found that students have now gone beyond connecting how business actions impact a corporation’s sustainability performance to how those very same actions increase or decrease environmental and societal turbulence.

With turbulence from uncertainty intensifying, business education is feeling societal pressure to better inspire responsible management. Students viewed the globalization of supply chains as directly contributing to the current global turbulence. And, conversely, they believed that sustainable supply chains could help reduce that turbulence by bringing about positive change on both environmental and social fronts.

Both groups of students made a connection between specific actions of global supply chains and how those actions can increase or decrease global environmental and societal turbulence. As one executive MBA student in our survey summarized it: “Business has more capacity to affect change than all the NGOs put together.” Both undergrad and grad students also strongly believed that sustainability considerations should be embedded in business education.

Sustainability content in business education was found to significantly increase global awareness and empathy for both groups, despite different life and work experiences. So it’s equally valued by both MBA students and undergraduates.

Furthermore, with robotics and artificial intelligence predicted to increase societal turbulence by bringing about significant labor market changes, corporations and B schools would be wise to expand and embed sustainability — or face the risk of even more public outcry in the very near future.

Here is the link to the study: https://theconversation.com/how-current-and-future-business-executives-link-sustainability-and-global-strife-114569

Guest Post: Is Your Class Model Preparing Students for Career Success?

Beverly Amer is President’s Distinguished Fellow in the W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University. She is also author of a workbook for college students on practicing soft skills and director of the 45 videos we provide with our text

Chances are good you’ve followed recent trends and have blended or flipped your OM course. Great! You’re modeling the kind of “workplace” students will join when they start their careers. They’ll be expected to source and evaluate resources independently, and come to work with knowledge, ready to contribute. But I suspect you’ve encountered a few bumps along the way, not the least is student confusion about what’s expected of them when so much of the “work” – that which you used to lecture over in class – is squarely on their shoulders.

My flipped undergraduate courses have benefited greatly from what I call a “student responsibility agreement.” It’s a simple syllabus appendix that explains our class model’s role in preparing them for career success, and my expectations of them. We all have classroom expectations, but reframing them along the lines of “career preparedness” can change the lens students use to view how their class behavior now can impact their future. I give this piece of advice: “If you can be the person in the room who not only identifies the problem, but generates 1 or 2 workable solutions, you’ll be viewed as an asset everyone will want on their team.”

So here goes – my list that moves the student from passive recipient of information to active participant in knowledge acquisition: (1) Read syllabus policies and schedules and use a calendar to avoid missed deadlines; (2) Start work on assignments well before the deadline so there’s time to seek help, if needed; (3) Build relationships with classmates for out-of-class work so in-class contributions are more meaningful; (4) Maximize efficiency by figuring out technology needs – and backups – before needed; (5) Don’t waste the time of your instructor by asking questions already answered in FAQ files, the syllabus, or other assignment materials; (6) Technology failures are never an excuse for missed deadlines; and (7) Sending me an email excuse for failure to finish right before a deadline does not guarantee any acceptance of such excuse.

Earth-shattering? Probably not. But laying a foundation of expectations early and explaining why learning to be a self-starter and problem-solver now can only benefit your students later.

Guest Post: A Case for Supply Chain Simulation in Your OM Class

Our Guest Post today comes from Chuck Nemer, who has taught operations management for 16 years at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. He is also a SCM trainer and can be reached at http://www.theguruofbiz.com

Here is what I often hear about supply chain management simulations from colleagues teaching OM:

• I want to provide a hands-on approach rather than get lost in theory
• I need to get more engagement from my students
• I need to present real-world challenges and the associated complexities

Using simulations, such as the ones that come free with the Heizer/Render/Munson text, in your classroom gives you all the above, as well as the opportunity to see for yourself that students “get it.” Students get to see not only how vital supply chain is to organizations today, but they can build a career where they touch all aspects of the organization and develop the ability to lead organizations successfully.

My experience has been simulation in the classroom aligns with and supports both the textbook and the body of knowledge for supply chain quite easily and successfully. Exciting to me, is that students walk away from the experience with confidence, and the ability to demonstrate to prospective employers they understand not just what supply chain is. But they also see what needs to be done to make a supply chain improve, grow, and compete successfully at a level greater than just from a textbook and lecture alone. Together, your knowledge, your class content, and the use of a simulation make a very powerful combination that you just have to consider these days where learners live and exist in a technology rich world and thirst for “an experience.” I really hope you will investigate the use of supply chain simulations and consider making them part of your classroom.

Guest Post: Soft Skills for Your OM Students in a Facebook World

Beverly Amer is Principal Lecturer in the W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University. She is also author of a workbook for college students on practicing soft skills and director of the 45 videos we provide with our text.

Colleges have long been regarded as the preparation grounds for students to gain the necessary technical skills and knowledge required to enter meaningful careers, but not the “softer” side of working in a professional role. Until now. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, employers are putting more time and money into learning about the “soft skills” of job applicants: namely, communication skills, problem-solving aptitude, and just plain ability to get along with others on a team. Professional groups surveying their members have also found these skills much in demand.

So what are we, as OM educators, to do? Yes, the technical skill and knowledge we teach in our class is critical. However, employers are now looking to us for help to round out career readiness in our graduates. Yet if you have ever looked at your students while conducting class discussion, you have likely seen social media vying for your students’ attention (no, they are probably NOT taking notes, and yes, this is a breakdown in soft skills!). And most instructors are reluctant to add soft skills to their already “full” courses.

There are small steps that we can do to assist our students without affecting the course content already in place. For starters, try holding students accountable for deadlines, requiring thoughtful remarks in class discussion, demanding logical arguments in support of opinions, and making them do the dreaded group work. To address communication skills, provide students guidance on what you consider acceptable etiquette. For example, my students are told how to format a business email message, complete with opening salutation, respectful body, and proper closing.

For problem-solving and critical thinking skills, require those challenging individual assignments that go beyond simple matching of the exercises worked in class. Require students to take personal responsibility for meeting deadlines on computer-based homework. Teamwork skill can only be developed through practice, so in-class small group discussions and out-of-class larger projects will lead to valuable lessons in how to deal with different personalities and value systems. Use small groups regularly discuss this blog’s OM in the News events.

Will your students thank you? Not right now, perhaps. However, their employers will. And wouldn’t it be great if our students were considered first with recruiters because they have the entire package: both technical skills AND soft skills?

Guest Post: Teaching OM to 2,500 Students a Year at UCF

Dr. Andy Johnson is a Lecturer in Supply Chain Management at the University of Central Florida, the largest single campus college in the U.S. with over 66,000 students. He holds a PhD from the Rutgers Business School.

The University of Central Florida’s (UCF) College of Business Administration has undergone a dramatic change in teaching it’s 13 core and non-core courses to over 8,500 students each semester. In the Fall of 2017, the college developed a unique way of engaging a large student body using a variant of the mixed-mode method called “Reduced Seat Time, Active Learning”. This is a blended method combining face-to-face and online requirements. The intent of the five face-to-face sessions is to provide a group type activity verifying learning for a particular course subject.

In the Spring of 2018, I taught six sections of the Supply Chain and Operations Management course using the Heizer/Render/Munson text to 647 students using the newly adopted modality. Students received the course content in a series of short online videos (138 in total) that I created, with deadlines for each chapter’s MyOMLab homework sets, quizzes, study modules and simulation programs. For the 5 classroom sessions, I developed scenarios similar to the computer simulations using printed exercises and Microsoft Excel worksheets. Upon completion of the group activities, the material provided in these sessions could then be used to help prepare the students to pass the 5 simulations in Forecasting, Inventory Management, Quality Management, Supply Chain Management, and Project Management provided by the text authors and Pearson.

Overall, my experience teaching this large student body for the first time, in this newly developed modality, was a success, but of course not without some challenges. However, there were two significant benefits using this new course design: 1) the face-to-face live sessions solidified learning in what I deem as the 5 pillars of supply chain and operations management and 2) having the opportunity to individually engage with over 600 students. I believe the college exceeded its expectations of the new format and will be a benchmark for other universities with a large student body.

Guest Post: Free Your Classroom from Cell Phones

Today’s Guest Post comes from Dr. Albena Ivanova, who is Associate Professor of OM at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania.

Last semester I found this article on the APA website: https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/ptacc/no-mobile-phones.pdf

The professor, whose name is not listed in the paper, uses a positive reinforcement strategy to provide a disincentive for the students to use cell phones during class. He/she gives an opportunity for the students to earn bonus points if they leave their cell phones on the front desk for the entire class the entire semester.

I tried this technique in one of my classes this semester (see the photo with each student’s spot numbered) and it worked well. I surveyed the students at the end of the semester and 84% stated that they did not miss their cell phones during class, 84% did not feel anxious during class without cell phones, 84% did not feel disconnected from the world without cell phones, 68% stated they were able to focus better, and 68% said were able to take better notes.

I will definitely use this technique again in my future classes. However, if the class relies too heavy on computer use, then the computer itself becomes a distraction. That is why I would recommend using this technique only if the computer usage in class is minimal.

Guest Post: Temperatures–A Decision Table Example

Our Guest Post today comes from Howard Weiss, Professor of Operations Management at Temple University.

I use the following example in my OM class to discuss maximin and minimax in a context the students readily understand and to demonstrate several Excel functions to my student. (It is based on a piece in Interfaces in 1990). Prior to class I search for the daily high and low temperatures in the previous month and copy them into a spreadsheet. The results appear in columns A and B.

Ultimately, I will ask my students which day was the hottest in that month and which day was the coldest. First, though, the average highs and lows in column B need to be converted to individual numbers which will be placed in columns D and E. Identifying the High temperature from column B gives me the opportunity to
• Show students Excel’s LEFT function
• Show students that the results of the LEFT function are characters, not numbers
• Show students Excel’s VALUE function to convert the characters to numerical values.
Identifying the lows is slightly more complicated due to the degree sign on the right of the values in column B which precludes us from using Excel’s RIGHT function. This gives me the opportunity to show students Excel’s MID function to pick out characters 5 and 6 from the high/low string and convert it to a numerical value.
At this point, I ask the students which date was the hottest and which was the coldest. Several use Excel’s MAX and MIN functions to find the date with the highest high temperature and lowest low temperature. Some average the high temperature and low temperature for each day and base their answer on the highest and lowest of the averages.
I then suggest that perhaps the hottest day is the day with the highest low (maximin) temperature because it is most difficult to sleep on those nights (without AC) and that the coldest day is the one with the lowest high (minimax) temperature because it is the worst day to go swimming. I also show them how to use Conditional Formatting to identify the highest and lowest temperatures in columns D and E as shown to the left.

Finally, I have the students graph (not shown) the temperatures in these two columns. It gives me the opportunity to show that it can be valuable to modify the minimum and the major units on the y-axis to make it easier to find the highs and lows.

I really like using an exercise that gives me the opportunity to display a maximin and minimax explanation and to show the students some Excel functions and features.

Guest Post: Teaching and Blogging Supply Chain and Operations at Niagara University

Our Guest Post today comes from Dr. Victor Pimentel, who is Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Niagara University. Here he is with his OM students.

Students usually describe Operations classes as tedious, even frustrating. They have a hard time relating the material covered in class with the real world. That is why it is critical for me as a professor to find the right tools to not only engage my students, but to encourage them to pursue a career in the field.

Jay, Barry and Chuck’s OM Blog, has proven to be critical for my early success as a prof at Niagara University. The blog not only bridges the gap between theory and practice, but also encourages my students to read articles, which look at everyday events with a more analytical view.

As part of my class, I require my students to read one article per week, with the article relating to the topic at hand. Then every Friday we take fifteen minutes to discuss it and take a short quiz. The first couple of weeks, I was impressed with how much they enjoyed the readings, which not only clarified why we covered some of the material in class, but also little by little sparked interest in the field. My students have described the articles as “Quick and to the point,” “Interesting,” “Current” and my personal favorite “Understandable, not pretentious.”

The Blog has already affected my student’s tremendously. As an example, while one of my former students was being interview by a multinational bread company, he cited the “Self-Driving Truck Makes a Beer Run” article as an example of how supply chains evolve and how future supply chains will look. He emphasized how much he wanted to be in the front lines as an active participant of this revolution. To nobody’s surprise, he received not one but three job offers from different divisions.

Thanks Jay, Barry and Chuck for making my class so much more rewarding.

Guest Post: Odd Quantity Discounts

Our Guest Post today comes from Howard Weiss, who is Professor of Operations Management at Temple University. 

Several of the models in OM assume proportionality, so when I get to break-even analysis (Supp.7), I explain that one of the assumptions is that the cost/unit for each unit is identical and the revenue/unit is identical for each unit. I like to ask the students to give me examples where it would not be the case that revenue is directly proportional to the number of units sold. The bulk of the examples the students cite are due to quantity discounts. I explain that our basic breakeven, transportation and LP models (Modules C and B) do not allow for quantity discounts but that when examining inventory (Chapter 12) we will see models that include quantity discounts.
What I like to bring into class though, for amusement, are odd instances of quantity “discounts”. Very recently I was in a Houligan’s restaurant and saw the cost per wing was more for 10 wings than for 6 wings. Jack’s Restaurant and Bar in NYC currently has what I think is an interesting pricing option for Tapas when comparing 3, 4, and 5 tapas. Lancer’s is a very nice diner near Philadelphia. It has what I think is an interesting pricing strategy when you compare the price of 12 oz. for two products with the same cost for 8 oz. glasses.

I usually delay the next example until I teach LP. Stroehmann’s bread is interesting. The picture below is from a loaf of bread from a few years back. Stroehman’s used to report nutrition for both 1 and 2 slices. The newer packages only report the calories in one slice. Two slices of bread have 110 calories whereas one slice has 50 calories. Of course, the calories should be proportional.

Best Buy once ran a sale where buying 100 DVDs was less expensive than buying 50 DVDs. Not less expensive per DVD but rather less expensive in total cost! I always encourage my students to be alert for these odd quantity discounts.

 

Guest Post: A Breakeven Analysis Using Real Data

Our Guest Post today comes from Howard Weiss, who is Professor of Operations Management at Temple University. Howard has developed both POM for Windows and Excel OM for our text.

I like to direct my students to real data whenever possible in my Operations Management course. The Philadelphia Inquirer (http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/grateford-phoenix-prison-400-million-new-20170915.html) has an article about a new prison, Phoenix, that is being built in Pennsylvania to replace the old prison, Graterford. Phoenix is expected to open in July, 2018. The article gives data that makes it very easy to formulate a break-even example for the students.

According to the article, Phoenix cost $400 million to build, will cost $90 per day to house an inmate and will have 4055 beds. Currently at Graterford it costs $123 per day per inmate.

I have asked my students to determine the following:
1. What is the total savings per year assuming the prison operates at 100% capacity?
2. Why is this different from the $48 million dollars reported in the article? Assume the costs given above are correct.
3. How many years will it take until the Phoenix project breaks even based on the $48 million reported in the article?

I expect my students to:
1. compute the savings per inmate per day ($33); the savings per inmate per year ($12,045); the total savings per year? $48,842,475
2. realize that the prison does not operate at full capacity and hopefully to report that the effective capacity is 98%.
3. compute the break-even point in years (8.33 years).

 

Guest Post: Effects of the SWARM Effect on Total Team Collaborative Learning Results

 

Our Guest Post comes from Phillip Flamm, who teaches Operations Management in the ISQS department at Texas Tech University. This is his 10th posting on our OM blog.

I have been working with total team collaborative learning (TTCL) for 5 years and the impact it has on student retention and speed of learning. In short TTCL involves the manner in which a team of 3-4 students process lecture material. Step by step:
• Lecture 1…Team covers Lecture 1 notes and compile a cumulative understanding of that lecture which is distributed to all members
• Lecture 2…Team covers Lecture 2 then reviews Lecture 1
• Lecture 3…Team covers Lecture 3 then reviews Lectures 1 and 2
• Lecture 4…Team covers Lecture 4 then reviews Lectures 1, 2, and 3
• One last review of all Lectures before an exam yields good scores

Results have been very, very good. TTCL teams tend to average 15 to 20 points higher on exams than the class (450 students) average.
The SWARM process adds to TTCL:
• Lecture 1….same process as above
• Lecture 2….a member from each team rotates from their team (1) to the next team (2) carrying the cumulative version of Lecture 1. Team (2) combines both documents and then covers Lecture 2
• Lecture 3….different team member from 1 goes to 2 with cumulative Lecture 2. Team 2 reviews both cumulative documents then 2 and 3
• Lecture 4….different team member (1) goes to 2 with cumulative 4 document and so on

The idea is that the movement of cumulative documents/students will make available the notes of 8 students instead of 4. I suspect that the exam scores will be higher than previous TTCL classes, but how much is the question.

The next step in my research is to compare a class with no organized collaborative learning teams to the SWARM – TTCL in terms of exam grades.

Guest Post: Teaching OM in the European Classroom

Dr. Steven Harrod is Associate Professor in the Department of Management Engineering at Technical University of Denmark.

Will this be on the exam?” In my decade of teaching OM in the U.S., this was by far the most frequent question from students. The typical American course is assessed on a running sum of credit for attendance, participation, written homework, midterm and progress exams, and a final exam, much like the bill after a stay at a Hilton resort.

Speaking from my experience in Denmark, the European evaluation process and value system is much different. One of the clearest ways I have experienced this is with Heizer/Render/Munson’s popular  MyOMLab system. In the U.S., MyOMLab was well received and many students actively worked homework assignments to accumulate grade points. Here in Denmark, the response was, “Just give us the questions and the answers, and we’ll figure it out ourselves.”

Students are definitely more independent here than in the U.S. Written exams, numerical or multiple choice, are limited to courses with more than 40 students. Since all of my courses are smaller, I have exclusively held oral exams. An oral exam typically offers the student the opportunity to set the topic of the exam. Very often the examiners are external, not participants in the course delivery, and brought in at exam time. The student has a very real chance to emphasize topics of strength and avoid topics of weakness, and is very much “in the driver’s seat.”

And the examiners often represent potential employers, which makes for a different student to job market relationship than in the U.S. Although students here desire recognition and good grades, there is a relaxed relationship between students and the job market that supports a more exploratory, investigative education. The typical course I teach here is a form of “mass customization.” The lesson plan often contains multiple streams of related concepts.

The learning environment in Europe offers some interesting opportunities for exploration and growth, but it is also dependent on the many structural and cultural elements of Europe.