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GEST-S407

Operations management

academic year
2026-2027

Course teacher(s)

Kris Lieckens (Coordinator) and Evelyne VANPOUCKE

ECTS credits

5

Language(s) of instruction

english

Course content

Operations management is a vital topic that every business student needs to understand as it is at the heart of the creation of wealth for businesses, value for customers, and the improvement in the living standard of citizens of all countries. Operations managers are responsible for the production of services and products in an ethical and environmentally responsible way while being responsive to the market. Add to it the need to manage supply chains of materials, information and funds reaching to all areas of the world. While challenging, there are concepts, tools, and method that managers use to deal with operating problems in a global environment. The mission of this course is to provide you with a comprehensive set of concepts, tools and models for addressing decision-making in operations management.

Topics: Operations/supply chain strategy, Lean management, Supply chain uncertainty, queueing models, Process management, Lay-out of facilities, Quality management, optimization, S&OP, MRP, inventory management and Synchronous manufacturing.

Objectives (and/or specific learning outcomes)

Understand the concepts and terms used in the area of operations management. 
Use decision tools, based on statistics, to implement operations management tools and decision-making at operational, tactical and strategic level.

Prerequisites and Corequisites

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

Statistics and basic mathematics

Teaching methods and learning activities

  • Lectures in the auditorium
  • Exercise sessions
  • Group work

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

Slides, readings and other course information can be found on UV

Course notes

  • Université virtuelle
  • Syllabus

Contribution to the teaching profile

  • LO1.1 Integrate sustainable development into problem analysis. 
  • LO1.2 Master and apply key economic and managerial concepts, frameworks and theories in a professional context. 
  • LO1.3 Embed scientific and technologic processes to formulate a business issue into a well-defined problem and suggest solutions
  • LO1.4 Translate a strategy into an actional plan including the financials
  • LO2.1 Adapt a scientific approach to data management (analysis and providing solutions)
  • LO2.1 Display critical thinking 
  • LO3 Apply quantitative and qualitative techniques to support analysis

Other information

Contacts

Lecturer: Kris Lieckens (kris.lieckens@provideor.be)
Teaching assistant: Mohammad Fayyaz Rishehchi (mohammad.rishehchi.fayyaz@ulb.be)

Campus

Solbosch

Evaluation

Method(s) of evaluation

  • written examination
  • Group work
  • Written report

written examination

  • Closed question with multiple choices (MCQ)
  • Open question with short answer

Group work

Written report

Evaluation will be based on two parts: 
1) Written exam (open questions)
2) Group participation/assignment (business game in class)

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

Evaluation will be based on two parts:

  1. Group work (10%)
  2. Written exam (90%)

The final exam constitutes of two parts:

Part 1 (35%): Written for a couple of open ended questions. Students should be able to describe, explain and understand all principles, methods, tools, relationships, insights, etc.

Part 2 (65%): Exercises and problem based questions. No multiple choice. Closed book. Formularium and standard normal table will be provided. No software manipulations, with calculator.

For the re-sit examination (100%), the same content, format and weights apply, except that the Group work does not count anymore.

Language(s) of evaluation

  • english

Programmes