Appendix IB. Course Syllabi

IE 409 Interdisciplinary System Effectiveness (Co-listed with EE and ITEC)

Focus on functions that determine the effectiveness of an entire organization. Generic Theory of Constraints solutions to production, distribution, project management are compared to traditional solutions. Strategy for improvements discovered using simulations and group projects.

Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing.

Texts:
Goldratt, E. M., The Goal, North River Press, Second Revised Ed., 1992
Goldratt, E. M. Critical Chain, North River Press, 1997
Workbook materials from or approved by the A. Y. Goldratt Institute.

Course Objectives:

1. The Socratic approach is used to learn about problems and solutions in operations (production), distribution, and project management.
2. Gain experience in understanding the traditional industry practice.
3. Recognize and understand improved methods for global success of a company
4. Learn the generic solutions for production, distribution, and project management.
5. Learn the Buffer Management approach to treating variation without needing knowledge of the population statistical distribution(s).

Topics Covered:

1. The TOC approach to scheduling and buffer management in a make to order operation.
2. The TOC approach to the Make to Stock and delivery of product.
3. Project Management to meet budget, time and project scope constraints.

Class Schedule:
The course meets 2 times per week for 75 minutes/session. The course is basically split in equal parts for each of the 3 topics with an exam at the end of each topic. The course is highly interactive in recitation and simulations of the current practice (most are computer simulations) so that the students understand the effects of the current practices in the 3 topics above. For each topic a solution approach is discussed and simulated to understand the effects of correcting the cause of the negative results.

The project involves a trip to a nearby plant to observe the TOC that has been implemented. The students then determine what they believe should be the next step in improving the company and write a report on these conclusions. These results are then given to the company. This project is outside of the regular class time.

Professional Component Contributions:
The students learn the generic solutions and recognize that there is a focused logical way to make improvements instead of just improving everything. It is also understood that making improvements that do not contribute to the goal of the organization are unnecessary and not justified economically.

Relationship to Program Objectives:

IMSE Objective 1
The students are using the tools of this course, plus the recognition of statistical variation, to focus on what to do for improvement of the system. They have to recognize the shift in thinking from the traditional local optimization and why the shift is necessary.

IMSE Objective 2
The students are exposed to 3 major areas of IE. The production shows how to make significant improvements quickly by a logical 5-step process. The distribution solution shows why traditional forecasting and shipping must be changed significantly. The Project Management using Critical Chain prepares students to understand that there is a way to meet the speed-to-market pressures of industry today.

IMSE Objective 4
Students submit brief reports as to the reaction to the running of each simulation. These reports are written (submitted by e-mail) or are in-class discussions to ensure the understanding of everyone in the class. The discussion includes the common practice observed by those students having coop/internship/summer experience.

IMSE Objective 5
Each team includes approximately 4 students. The groups are assigned based on diverse backgrounds and majors, i.e., if possible no team has all one major, all one sex, all one nationality, or all the same age group if there are nontraditional students. The projects are chosen so that all of the tools (topics 1 — 5) are used to obtain a solution and a plan for implementation of the solution.

IMSE Objective 7
Students that have taken this course have used the knowledge in the capstone course. The students having TOC background are in demand at the companies that seek graduates from the IMSE department.

Prepared by: Howard d. Meeks

Date Prepared: June 12, 2000