CONTRIBUTERS: Prof. (Gp. Capt.) D.P. Apte Prof. (Gp. Capt.) Suhas Jagdale Prof. Anagha Gupte Anjali Mote
MIT School of Business
PGDM – 30th Batch Syllabus Subject Name: Operations Research Semester – II Subject Code: 203
Objective:
Effective decision-making is the key to a manager’s success. Enhancement of productivity, optimum use of available resources and maximization of achievement of goals are important to the survival of an organization in today’s fiercely competitive world. Operations research provides mathematical & scientific tools for effective decision making. Objective of the course is to introduce students to few such tools and make them aware of how these tools help the manager to improve his decision making as compared to decisions based on subjective judgment or intuition.
The Perspective
There are many optimization techniques, decision tools and quantitative methods which help in improving manager’s decision. All these can be generically called as ‘Operations Research’. Being highly mathematical and involving complex calculations, managers tend to avoid their use or leave them to the specialist. With advent of computers and various software packages, there is some interest in using these tools. However, still these have remained as ‘black box’ where
managers blindly use the packages handed over to them by experts in mathematics, statistics and IT. There is a need for managers to develop clear understanding about these tools. The subject is proposed to be covered in four phases viz. developing conceptual knowledge, using the tools to simple problems with hand calculations, using computer to solve complex problems, and discussing few cases. MS Excel is used as computer package to develop simple templates to solve problems. Within available time only few OR techniques are included in the course. However, students are advised to familiarize themselves with other techniques on their own. Further, students