Instructor

Prof. Rahul Patil

Semester

Spring ‘21

Course Difficulty

This course definitely makes it into the “chill” category. Although tougher than ENT minor courses, it is significantly easier than mechanical core courses, and most other minor courses for that matter.

Time Commitment Required

Simply attending all the lectures, without significant self-study is sufficient to get >=9 grade. => 3 hrs of lecture per week.

Grading Policy and Statistics

Exceptionally Generous Grading. 47 out of 60 students scored an AB grade or higher.
=> 80% of the class scored a 9 or above.

Attendance Policy

No such policy, as the course was run online in spring ‘21, Prof. Patil did not levy any attendance policy.

However, there are surprise quizzes, Prof. Patil informs about them 1 day before, only in the lecture. Advisable to attend classes and remain in touch with your friends.

Pre-requisites

There are no pre-requisites as such.

However, there is considerable overlap of topics with other courses, which will give you a boost in MG 406 or vice-versa in any of the following courses:

IE 503 : Operations Analysis
IE 504 : Service and Infrastructure Systems
ME 308 : Industrial Engineering and Operations Research I

By the time I enrolled for MG 406, I had already completed IE 503 (much more rigorous than MG 406) and so this course felt like a breeze. I was simultaneously enrolled in ME 308 (core course), and doing IE 503 and MG 406 helped me significantly here.

Evaluation Scheme

2 Home works : 15%.
These are basic assignments to be done in groups of 2 students, 1 before midsem, 1 after midsem.

1 Midterm Exam: 20 %

1 Group Case Submission and Presentation (TBA): 10 %

7 Short In Class Surprise Quiz : 20 % (cumulative till you earn 20 points. ) each will be worth 4 points. Prof. Patil informs about them 1 day before, only in the lecture. Advisable to attend classes and remain in touch with your friends.

End-sem : 35%
Moderate difficulty, 2 hr moodle quiz, you would be done in 1 hr :)

Topics Covered in the Course

Provides a high-level introduction to every-day concepts in supply chain management.

1) Operations Strategy
2) Inventory Control (EOQ, Newsboy, safety inventory, cycle stock)
3) Process design and analysis (batching)
4) Forecasting
5) Aggregate planning, Materials Required Planning, Master Production Schedule, lot sizing
6) Waiting line analysis
7) Facility Layout and Assembly line balancing
8) Process Variability
9) Quality Management

Teaching Style

Prof. Patil is an experienced supply chain manager-turned-Professor and uses a lot of case-studies and real-life simple examples to illustrate all the concepts. He’s very patient and explains any and all doubts in great detail.

Classes take place on Zoom, and are recorded. Presentation (ppts) of each chapter are provided. Slides are less info dense, and alone are insufficient. Attend lectures / watch recordings to understand thoroughly.

Tutorials/Assignments/Projects

Reasonably straightforward and ample time to complete, there were 0 questions in any of the H.W. assignments that could be categorized as “difficult”.

Feedback on Exams

Midsem : Moderate difficulty, 2 hr moodle quiz, you would be done in 1 hr :)

Endsem: Same as midsem

Quizzes: Simple and straightforward

Motivation for taking this course

Decided to take this course because :
1) Had already done IE 503 Operations analysis, found supply chain management very practical, interesting and easy to grasp.
2) Syllabus overlap, repeated concepts => less effort
3) Generous grading => Good grade
4) Less maths, more concepts

Course Highlights

There were 2-3 Case Study based quizzes.

Quite fun, really.

This is a style of teaching followed in Harvard Business School MBAs. You are given a case to study, and simple questions are asked to test your “ability to apply learned concepts in a real-life situation”.

Course Importance

This course is for you if you are:
1) Slightly interested by Supply Chain Management,
2) If you are just looking for a less-rigorous, low-effort, generous grading course,

It is a high-level introductory course, so no direct usefulness for electives/reserach.

How strongly would I recommend this course?

Very Strongly.

When to take this course?

Spring 2021 (Jan ‘21 -April’21)
Can be taken anytime, no pre-reqs.

Going Forward

Can help considerably in the following courses:

IE 503 : Operations Analysis
IE 504 : Service and Infrastructure Systems
ME 308 : Industrial Engineering and Operations Research I

1) There are NPTEL Swayam courses on Operations Management that were approved by the DUGC to be taken up as PP/NP courses. Can help there.

2) If you go for a Supply Chain related intern, it definitely helps to have a high level understanding. It helped me in my summer intern on operations analytics.

References Used

There is a super-helpful book, available cheap 2nd hand on Amazon :

Operations and Supply Management, 12th Edition, by Richard Chase, Ravi Shankar, Robert Jacobs and Nicholas Aquilano.

Other Remarks

None

Interesting relevant links

None

Review By: Shaswat Gupta