Syllabus

Structure, dates, reading, grading

Every Thursday

Morning · 09:00–12:00Concepts explained

Afternoon · 13:00–15:30Concepts applied and modeled

Every new idea in the same five steps

  1. Real problem — a puzzle from the chapter
  2. Student life — the same idea at a party or on moving day
  3. Intuition — the formula in words, then short practice
  4. Factory — the textbook’s examples
  5. Supply chain — the same idea across several firms

The seven Thursdays

Seven Thursdays, 09:00–12:00 and 13:00–15:30. Rooms and changes: MS Teams workspace.
Week Thursday Chapter Morning test
1 1 Oct 2026 Chapter 1 Operations and productivity —
2 8 Oct Chapter 7 Process strategy + Supplement 7 Capacity and constraint management Readiness Test 01 · Chapter 1
3 15 Oct Chapter 5 Design of goods and services + Supplement 5 Sustainability in the supply chain —
4 22 Oct Chapter 6 Managing quality + Supplement 6 Statistical process control Readiness Test 02 · Chapters 7 and 5
5 29 Oct Chapter 4 Forecasting —
6 5 Nov Chapter 11 Supply chain management + Supplement 11 Supply chain management analytics; Chopra, Chapter 3 Readiness Test 03 · Chapters 6 and 4
7 12 Nov Chapter 13 Aggregate planning and S&OP Readiness Test 04 · Chapter 11, Chopra Chapter 3, Chapter 13

Reading

  • Heizer et al. (2023) — one chapter per week
  • Textbook online (Pearson eLibrary): https://elibrary.pearson.de/book/view/99.150005/9781292444895 — works only in the university network (on campus or via VPN)
  • Week 6 in addition: Chopra (2019), Ch. 3 (supply chain drivers and metrics)
  • Additional optional readings will be provided for each week.
  • The slides lead into the chapter; they do not replace it.

Grading

The group share (40 %) is adjusted for each member by a peer evaluation factor, as is common in Team-Based Learning.
Component Weight
Individual tests (four) 60 %
Team tests (four) 15 %
Group project (groups of 4–5, poster session 12 Nov) 25 %
  • Team — choose a team of 4–5 for the team tests and the group project and sign up on ILIAS before 8 October
  • Bonus sheet — Weeks 1–6, alone, on paper, in class; upload to ILIAS by 15:30 → next test grade 0.3 better (e.g. 2.3 → 2.0), if that test is passed
  • Code name — a pioneer of operations management, on every test paper and bonus sheet; keeps the papers anonymous

Rules and project dates: Assessment.

Tools

Google Colab (free Google account; how-to in the Tools appendix) · ILIAS for announcements and uploads · the textbook · an AI assistant of your choice (AI assistants: Academic Cloud, principles). Nothing to install.

Transparency and licence

This script and the module’s notebooks, handouts and slides were built with Claude (Anthropic) as drafting assistant, reviewer and layout tool. All content was checked, revised and is the responsibility of Roman Bartnik. Text and materials: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Sources: References.