Operation Planning

Duration

30h Th

Number of credits

Lecturer

Yasemin Arda

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

This course concentrates on mathematical programming models and techniques of production and inventory management that are designed to achieve greater operational efficiency both in industrial and service organizations. The course starts with tactical level decision-making problems and presents advanced models of aggregate production planning that are at the heart of sales and operations planning (S&OP) systems. The operational level lot-sizing problems, which are the core decision-making problems of all the material requirements planning (MRP) systems, are considered just after. At the very operational level, scheduling deals with the allocation of resources to tasks over given time periods with the goal of optimizing one or more objectives. Scheduling is a decision-making process that is used on a regular basis in many manufacturing and service industries. The course presents many structurally different scheduling problems and exact and heuristic solution methods for these problems. Moreover, group projects, realized using a programming language, aim to familiarize students with real world production and material flow management problems. Students are wanted to implement mathematical programming techniques and heuristic methods for solving logistical decision-making problems within group projects.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

In relation with the Assurance of Learning process of HEC Liège, the learning objectives adressed in this course are:

• Strategy: This course will help students to establish a strategy in order to optimize the value chain of a company, an organization or a project.
• Strategy: This course will help students to understand the scientific and technological context of the situation they are confronted with.
• Strategy: This course will allow students to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes distinctive to a specialist's action in their field.
• Strategy: This course will help students to demonstrate scientific precision and a critical mind.
• Implementation: This course will train the student to take into account the scientific, technological and entrepreneurial dimensions of the situation they are confronted with.
• Implementation: This course will exercise students in the ability to take advantage of data digitalization. (MBA excepted)
• Implementation: This course will exercise students to work efficiently in an international and multidisciplinary team, among others in a leading position.
• Quality and Performance Control: This course will help students to plan and implement the performance and quality control in a company, an organization or a project.
• Quality and Performance Control: This course will develop students' ability to use the appropriate analytical tools when analysing a complex management situation.
• Communication: This course will allow students to improve their proficiency in one foreign languages (among the 3 languages required by the program).
• Adaptability: This course will encourage students to be curious and to show a scientific precision of academic level.

• Deepen knowledge in production and inventory management.
• Learn new models and techniques used to manage production and material flows.
• To be able to solve frequently faced problems of production and material flow management.
• To be able to recognize the situations where production and material flow management techniques can be used as decision making tools and to interpret correctly the conclusions which can be derived using these techniques.
• To be able to make critical analysis of these different techniques.
• Understand the advantages and limitations of these kinds of approaches for real world applications.
• Understand the difficulties of treating real world data and managing real world production and material flow systems.
• Learn how to use a programming language to treat logistical problems.
• To be able to conduct detailed analysis, drive conclusions, and propose original improvement opportunities for real world logistical systems using these techniques and tools.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Basic concepts of supply chain management, production planing, and inventory management

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Lectures
Discussions
Computer lab sessions: Computer lab sessions are organized to familiarize students with the employed programming language and to guide them in their group projects.
Group projects: The projects are treated in groups of three to four students. Students are evaluated based on their written reports and the developed computer programs.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Face-to-face : Students are wanted to participate in all the sessions (10 × 3 hours).

Recommended or required readings

Documents that can be found on the virtual campus Lol@:
1. Syllabus: The course notes and the PowerPoint presentations used during the lectures can be found on the virtual campus Lola@. Students are wanted to be in possession of these documents during the lectures.
2. Articles, book chapters, case studies

Assessment methods and criteria

Individual examination (~ 50%): A writen exam or an oral exam is organized depending on the number of students.
Group projects (~ 50%): The projects are prepared in groups of three to four students and evaluated based on the quality of the written report and the developed computer program.

Each student has an opportunity to evaluate the contribution of his/her teammates to group projects during the semester by filling a peer evaluation. Taking these peer evaluations into account as well as the participation in class along the year, professor may decide, by a justifiable opinion, to give different grades to students of a same team. Motivation must take into account criteria such as quality of work different from other team members, a greater or lesser involvement in the mission.

For the second session, if the concerned student wants to resubmit a project (alone this time), he/she has to contact the professor. If such a request is not received until an acceptable date, the project grades obtained in the first session are automatically taken into account to calculate the second session grade of the course.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

The course is given during the second semester.
The course is given in English.

Contacts

Lecturer:
Yasemin ARDA (yasemin.arda@uliege.be)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the May-June 2020 session

Teaching methods implemented : distance-learning

The course notes and the PowerPoint presentations of all the chapters that will be covered in the final exam are available on the virtual campus Lol@.
For the chapter "Scheduling in Manufacturing and Services" studied principally in distance learning mode, three 3-hour live sessions were organized using the Barco system available in the classroom 224 of the building N1.
Questions related to the chapter notes, PowerPoint presentations, and numerical exercises are answered through e-mail.
Lifesize sessions are organized to answer questions related to the group projects.

Assessment subjects

The final exam will cover the following chapters:
Chapters studied in face-to-face mode: Linear Production Planning Models, Lot-Sizing Models.
Chapters studied in distance learning mode: Scheduling in Manufacturing and Services.

Assessment methods

The grading policy is slightly modified:
Group projects (60%): Taking into account the current circumstances, the second group project have been adapted with the aim of lightening the workload of students. Given the workload of the projects, the percentage related to the group projects is increased from 50% to 60%.
Individual examination (40%): An online oral exam will be organized through Lifesize or Collaborate.
More detailed information regarding the oral exam will be available on Lol@:
http://lola.hec.uliege.be/course/view.php?id=344

Contacts

Yasemin ARDA (yasemin.arda@uliege.be)

Adaptation of teaching commitments following the COVID-19 pandemic for the Aug-Sept 2020 session

Assessment subjects

The final exam will cover the following chapters:
Chapters studied in face-to-face mode: Linear Production Planning Models, Lot-Sizing Models.
Chapters studied in distance learning mode: Scheduling in Manufacturing and Services.

Assessment methods

The grading policy is the same as the first session:
Group projects (60%): The concerned students, who declared their wish to resubmit individual projects in the second session, have already been assigned projects to be performed for the second session. The reports have to be submitted the latest on Sunday, August 16.
Individual examination (40%): An online oral exam will be organized through Lifesize on Tuesday, August 25.
More detailed information regarding the oral exam will be directly communicated to the concerned students.

Contacts

Yasemin ARDA (yasemin.arda@uliege.be)

Items online