QUA 640: Management Science and Modeling

Fall Session 2005
General Information

Lecturer : Lewis Fernanadese
Telephone Number : (04)2828793, (050)6352062
Email : lewism@eim.ae
Lecturer’s Consultation Times : 12.00 pm to 5.00 pm, all week days except Thursdays.

Subject Organization

Credit points : 3 credit points
Contact hours per week : 2-hour lecture every Friday.
Lecture time : Sun 1.30 – 3.30 (See schedule to changes)

Course Description:

This course will survey selected deterministic and probabilistic models, their areas of application, and their solution methodologies. Emphasis will be on problem formulation, solution techniques, and output interpretation and analysis. Computer software will be used extensively for problem solutions.

Course Content :

Note: the content that follows is that which was taught for the last delivery, while the core of the course will remain the same, more emphasis will now be given to spreadsheet based solutions. Case studies will be taken up to suit the student requirements based on their field of work.

Objectives:
  1. On completion of the course a student should be able to
  2. Know generally about functions, operation Research and where it can be applied.
  3. Learn about models and modeling process
  4. Understand and formulate real problems as linear or non-linear functions.
  5. Use excel as a tool to arrive at optimal solutions and perform sensitivity analysis.
  6. Know to perform Decision analysis under certainty or uncertainty.
Method of Teaching:

We believe that the best way to learn Management science modeling concept is by working through examples. Modeling is integrated with functional areas of business like finance, marketing and operation Management. Real example taught from different areas of business will tap into the power of spreadsheet modeling. Emphasis will be given for students to acquire Skills of modeling rather than memorizations of models.

Textbooks:

Note: Management Science is more often referred to Operation Research besides as Quantitative  Methods, Quantitative techniques, Linear Programming and Decision Analysis and therefore you will find as many different book titles. You may refer to any book in our library but Operations Research by Taha is very popular and Practical Management Science by Winston is ideal for example based learning.

Assessment

This subject has the following assessment components.

Assessment Items Percentage of Final Mark Due Dates
1. Assignments 60% See below
2. Final Examination 40% Examination Period

Assignments Percentage of final marks Submission Date (by the student)
Assign 1 15% Week 3
Assign 2 15% Week 4
Assign 3 15% Week 5
Assign 4 15% Week 8

As assignments are to assess a student’s understanding of course material, each assignment must be solved using only material covered up to that point in the course (unless otherwise stated in the question).

Lecture schedules
Week Topic Remarks
1 Brief Intro to OR, Basic Math function, Graphs, Linear problem formulation Excel Graphs used
2 Linear programming problem formulation cont., decision Var., Constraints, Objective functions.  
3 Graphical Method, Bounds,  Area of  and optimal Solution. Manual Graphs
4 Linear solution using the Excel Solver. LP more than 2 variable. Integer Programming.  
5 Sensitivity Analysis. Applications.  
6 OR revisited in General , Models and Modeling Theoretical
7 Decision analysis  
8 Non Linear Programming and specific Application.