Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Objective

This course provides ways to analyze manufacturing systems in terms of material flow and storage, information flow, capacities, and times and durations of events. Fundamental topics include probability, inventory and queuing models, forecasting, optimization, process analysis, and linear and dynamic systems.

Factory planning and scheduling topics include flow planning, bottleneck characterization, buffer and batch-size tactics, seasonal planning, and dynamic behavior of production systems.

Grading

The grading will be weighted as follows:

Notes

1. Problem sets: We will distribute problem sets related to each subject that we cover. These problem sets will not be graded, and you do not have to hand them in (posted "due" dates are only for helping you stay on track). However, you should try hard to solve all problems before looking at the answers as, like any other skill, the only way to really learn the material is by practicing regularly (plus, working on the problems will help you do well on the take home assignments!). Detailed solutions will be provided a week later.
2. For students who end up being at the borderline between two grades, we will take into consideration evidence of diligence and effort, in the form of class participation, attendance to recitation and office hours, etc. This cannot hurt you, but it may tip the scale in your favor.

Calendar

This is an approximate schedule for the course topics, problem sets, and assignments. There may be some modifications of the class contents, and we may add a problem set or two. We'll give you some warning if we do.