DAO2703 / DSC2006 Operations and Technology Management

Module: DAO2703 / DSC2006 Operations and Technology Management

Semester taken: AY 2019/20 Semester 2

Lecturer: Dr Qi Mei, Dr Chou Cheng-Feng, Mabel and Prof Hum Sin Hoon

Tutor: Mr Seah Seow Buay

Textbook: OM, 6th ed., David Alan Collier & James R. Evans, 2017. Cengage

What it is about

This module introduces the operations aspect of a business to students and seeks to explain why having a strong operations capability is vital to the survival of an organisation. You will get to learn why queues form, how to find the average waiting time and to gain a better appreciation of how technology is used in production processes.

Assessment components

• Final Exam (individual): 60%

• In-class Quiz (individual): 5%

• Team project report: 10%

• Team project presentation: 5%

• Tutorial assignments (Team and individual work): 15%

• Peer Evaluation (individual): 5%

Comments

This is a rather light module as it emphasizes more on understanding the few concepts being taught in class. It is also more practical as there is greater emphasis on how a certain formula can be used in different scenarios, rather than how the formula is derived.

The lecture is delivered by 3 different professors in the order given above. They each touch on different topics and have greatly different styles of teaching. Dr Qi Mei tends to focus more on the contents of the module whereas Dr Mabel Chou tends to focus more on case studies and examples to illustrate the concepts. Finally, Prof Sin Hoon is the best overall as he is able to break down the difficult concepts into easier bite-sized parts with many examples to help in your understanding.

Overall, this module has a rather steep bell curve, as the cohort size is rather large and many Engineering students will also be competing together. Nonetheless, the concepts taught are rather applicable in real life and is crucial to help better understand the concepts taught.

Tutorials

The tutorials are 1 hour each week and attendance is optional. The tutorials mainly covered the tutorial questions, essentially flashing the answers for us to cross-check. Also, since all tutorials need to be submitted to the tutor for grading, there is no excuse for you to not do the tutorial. However, the good thing is the tutorials are done in groups, until the last 2 tutorials which are done individually.

Overall, the tutorials are not very useful, which the tutor has admitted it himself. However, he provides a quick summary of the lecture notes, which is helpful in consolidating the information taught during the lectures. The tutor is also an industry expert, so most of the knowledge that he brings is to make it more relevant to real life.

Project

For the project, you are required to form your own team in the tutorial class (which is usually done in the first lesson). Thereafter, you need to identify a real-life business process, collect data and do a process analysis, finally ending with suggestions for improvements. My group did on KFC and the ordering process, which is very simple to do up and in fact, it can be done in a week.

My suggestion is to go for things where the data is easily collected and described, as you generally have a better understanding of how the process works and it is just a matter of translating it into actual words. Taking some pictures along the way also helps to make it more believable.

Mid-terms and Finals

The mid-terms was a short 6-question MCQ quiz and covered the first aspect of the module which was taught by Dr Qi Mei. Unfortunately, I did not do very well here as I was not prepare for the quiz at all. Subsequently when the results came out, I managed to score only 3/6 even though the median was 4/6.

However, the finals was a whopping 60%, so there is definitely a chance for a comeback. The final exam was conducted online with no option to go back to previous pages, all of which are MCQs. We were given a list of recommended times for each section, which threw me off significantly as I tried to follow the recommended times closely. However, the first aspect was mostly calculation questions, and the questions were scrambled so many of them did not make sense. Subsequent portions were on theory, which were easier and faster to complete.

There are many practice questions that can be found online, along with the answers through Quizlet. Be sure to practice those, hint hint.

Other information

Assignment workload: Almost every tutorial needs to be submitted for grading, done as a group with 2 done individually.

Project workload: There is one project to be completed.

Readings: None

Recommended if: A compulsory module for Business students and a great introduction to the world of operations (note: this is different from supply chain!)

Rating: 4.0/5. Easy and practical module, but steep bell curve

Expected grade: A-

Actual grade: A-