Business 9802a Management Science I

2012-2013
Course Syllabus (May 9 2012; Subject to Change)
Location: Room ####, Ivey Business School

Instructor

Professor Fredrik Odegaard

Office: 2R34 (Ivey Business School)
Phone: 519 661-4278; Fax: 519 661-2804
E-mail: fodegaard@ivey.uwo.ca

Time: Thursdays, 2-5 p.m.

Administrative Assistant

Elaine Carson
Office: 2R34 (Ivey Business School)
Phone: 519 661-3794
E-mail: ecarson@ivey.uwo.ca

Course Logistics
The class meets once a week for 3 hours. Each 3 hour class is divided into two parts. In the first
part the instructor will lead a lecture/discussion based on the technical topic. In the second part
the class will engage in an article discussion (based on the technical topic covered in the first
part). Students are expected to have read both the assigned chapter and article reading before
each class, and be prepared to engage in the class-discussion.

Course Description
This is the first part of the Management Science foundation series; the second part of the series
is Bus 9812. In this two course series, students will learn technical topics including optimization,
linear programming, stochastic processes, game theory, dynamic programming, non-linear
programming, integer programming. In addition, students will also learn applications of the
techniques and tools (e.g. revenue management), and how to identify, formulate, and
investigate a research problem which can be analyzed through the tools under each technical
topic.

Topics Covered
Optimization (Linear, Integer, Non-Linear Programming), Dynamic programming, Stochastic
Processes, Queuing Theory, Game Theory, Revenue Management, Statistics, Probability, and
Simulation.

Grading
20%
20%
30%
30%

Class Contribution
Assignment Questions
Leading Article Discussion
Report & Presentation: Literature Review

Bus 9802a Mgt Science I Fall 2012

Page 1 of 4

Grading component description:

Class Contribution: Students are expected to actively participate and contribute to the classroom discussion. Students are therefore required to have read the required reading and
prepared questions and discussion points to share with their classmates.
Assignment Questions: Each week students will be given a set of 3-4 questions from Hillier &
Lieberman. Students are required to turn in the assignments within 1 week. Late assignments
are not accepted and the student will receive a zero for that week.
Leading Article Discussion: Each week we will discuss an applied research article (see list
below). Students will sign-up to lead two 60 minute class-discussions per term. The discussion
should include a description of the problem, motivation, brief literature review, model
framework, assumptions, analysis/results explanation, and future work or extensions.
Term Report & Presentations: Each student will write a 5-8 page term report, and give a 20
minute presentation at the end of the term. The objective of the fall term report is to do a
literature review on a problem of choice. The literature review should include a minimum of 8
articles, and ideally include articles from fields other than Operations Research/Management
Science. A 1-2 page interim report is due mid-way through the term.

Academic Integrity
Plagerism: Students must write their essays and assignments (at Ivey this includes case exams
and reports) in their own words. Whenever students take an idea, or a passage from another
author, they must acknowledge their debt both by using quotation marks where appropriate
and by proper referencing such as footnotes or citations. Plagiarism is a major academic offence
(see Scholastic Offense Policy in the Western Academic Calendar).
All required papers (at Ivey this includes case exams and reports) may be subject to submission
for textual similarity review to the commercial plagiarism detection software under license to
the University for the detection of plagiarism. All papers submitted will be included as source
documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers
subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement,
currently between The University of Western Ontario and Turnitin.com (hyperlink
www.turnitin.com).
Statement on Academic Offences: Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are
directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a
Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site:
http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/scholastic_discipline_grad.pdf
Academic Handbook, Exam, Course Outlines Page 4 Issued: 2011 02.

Bus 9802a Mgt Science I Fall 2012

Page 2 of 4

Course Materials (All materials listed are REQUIRED)

Hillier & Lieberman Introduction to Operations Research (9th Edition)
Talluri and Van Ryzin Theory and Practice of Revenue Management (should be available in
soft-copy via the library) we will only cover Chapter 1 and 2.
Articles (subject to change)
Note that each student is responsible for retrieving the articles themselves, i.e. there is no
course package containing the articles.
Interfaces (http://www.informs.org/Pubs/Interfaces)
- Let the Needles do the Talking! Evaluating the New Haven Needle Exchange, Edward H.
Kaplan and Elaine OKeefe (1993)
- In Search of Strategic Operations Research/Management Science, Peter C. Bell and Chris K.
Anderson (2002)
- Scheduling Employees in Quebecs Liquor Stores with Integer Programming, Bernard
Gendron (2005)
- Casey's Problem: Interpreting and Evaluating a New Test, James E. Smith and Robert L.
Winkler (1999)
- Universal Tool for Vaccine Scheduling: Applications for Children and Adults, Hannah K.
Smalley, Pinar Keskinocak, Faramroze G. Engineer, and Larry K. Pickering (2011)
- Nu-kotes Spreadsheet Linear-Programming Models for Optimizing Transportation, Larry J.
LeBlanc, James A. Hill Jr., Gregory W. Greenwell, and Alexandre O. Czesnat (2004)
- Setting Prices on Priceline, Chris K. Anderson (2009)
Travel time estimation on a freeway using Discrete Time Markov Chains, Jiyoun Yeon, Lily
Elefteriadou, Siriphong Lawphongpanich (Transportation Research Part B, vol. 42, issue 4, 2008)
At What Cost do we Reduce Pollution? Shadow Prices of SO2 Emissions, John R. Swinton (The
Energy Journal, vol. 19, issue 4, 1998)

COURSE OUTLINE
FALL 2012 Deterministic Modeling
Week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Topic
H&L
Intro to OR & Modeling
Linear Programming
Simplex Method
Duality
Duality
Integer Programming
Transportation
Network Optimization

Bus 9802a Mgt Science I Fall 2012

Articles
________________
Ch.1, 2 In Search, Let Needles
Ch. 3
tbd
Ch. 4 & 5
tbd
Ch. 6
tbd
Cost Reduce Pollution
Ch. 11
Scheduling Employees
Ch. 8
Nu-kotes
Ch. 9
tbd
Page 3 of 4

9
10
11
12

Game Theory
Nonlinear Programming
Nonlinear Programming
Term Projects Presentations

Bus 9802a Mgt Science I Fall 2012

Ch. 14
Ch. 12
-

tbd
tbd
tbd
-

Page 4 of 4