About OM at MIT
What is Operations Management?
Operations Management deals with the design and management of products, processes, and supply chains. It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms need to deliver the goods and services their clients want.
The purvey of OM ranges from strategic to tactical and operational levels. Representative strategic issues include determining the size and location of manufacturing plants, deciding the structure of service or telecommunications networks, and designing technology supply chains. Tactical issues include plant layout and structure, project management methods, and equipment selection and replacement. Operational issues include production scheduling and control, inventory management, quality control and inspection, traffic and materials handling, and equipment maintenance policies.
The Doctoral Program
Doctoral students study total quality management, manufacturing technology, inventory control, materials management, logistics, performance evaluation of manufacturing systems, production scheduling, and the interface between product design and manufacturing. An engineering background, although not required, is helpful.
As the research description below will illustrate, students typically draw heavily from associated disciplines during the course of their research. Accordingly, the academic program provides significant flexibility to accommodate diverse research interests. In addition to core OM subjects such as optimization and queuing theory, students must pursue a relevant minor field. Recent examples of minor fields include Operations Research, Behavioral Science, Economics, and Finance.
Doctoral students participate in faculty members' research from the early stages of the program. In addition to working with a primary advisor, interaction and dialogue with other students and faculty are encouraged through informal weekly lunchtime discussions and other friendly forums for presenting current research.
Research
Operations Management faculty develop managerial models for planning, controlling, and streamlining the production of goods and services. Both students and faculty participate in activities of MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing Program, a joint research and education effort of the Sloan School, the MIT School of Engineering, and about 20 large and small U.S. manufacturing firms. Together they collaborate on research projects such as the interface between design and manufacturing, the introduction and evaluation of new technology, and the quality management and continuous improvement.
Students and faculty may also interact with members of the Operations Research Center, which is located in the Sloan complex but organized as an interdepartmental center structured to take advantage of the expertise of faculty drawn from a variety of other departments, including Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mathematics, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Urban Studies and Planning, and Nuclear Engineering.
Several years ago the Operations Management concentration merged with System Dynamics in recognition of the increasing overlap of the two disciplines and their research interests. System Dynamics combines the theory, methods, and philosophy needed to analyze the behavior of systems not only in management but also in other fields such as environment change, politics, economic behavior, medicine, and engineering. It draws on Organizational Studies, Behavioral Decision Theory, and Engineering to provide a common foundation for understanding and influencing how things change over time.
System Dynamics doctoral students study principles of systems, economic and industrial dynamics, and policy analysis. They also perform additional work in economics, information systems, statistics, and political science.
