The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Operations Management

PREFACE

I first started teaching operations management to M.B.A. students in 1995. Despite trying many different textbooks and reading packets since then, I have yet to find a book that my students and I think is useful, much less interesting. The texts inevitably cover an overly broad range of topics and present superficial versions of management science techniques that students are unlikely to remember (or use) in the workplace.

What is needed is an enduring framework by which to evaluate operations, identify opportunities to improve them, implement changes, and measure outcomes—what I think of as “managing for results.” I believe this framework should be applicable at the organizational, team, and individual levels of performance—whether in ...