Operations and Management Science PhD Program

The topics covered in each of these seminars are listed below. At least one doctoral seminar is offered in each semester, and seminars related to new research topics are always under development. Additional research seminars which include presentations by faculty from other institutions, industry leaders, and our own doctoral students are also held.

  Capacity

1. Capacity and competitive reaction
2. Capacity as a deterrent to entry
3. Capacity as a buffer stock
4. Capital acquisition and the learning organization
5. Traditional OR approaches to capacity expansion
6. Capacity as an option
7. Issues on capacity decisions at General Motors
8. Plant loading and capacity investments
9. The costs of capacity usage at Libby Owen Ford
10. Costing capacity usage
11. Complexity as a capacity issue
12. Scheduling with capacity constraints
13. Exchange rate fluctuations and information issues in capacity planning.

   Information in Production Inventory Systems

1. Taxonomy and Value of Information
2. Value of Information
3. Value of Centralized System
4. Coordination/Lead Times vs. Information
5. Bullwhip Effect
6. Postponement
7. Information Delays in Supply Chain
8. Local vs. Global Information
9. Using Information in Promotions
10. Contracts
11. Non-Cooperative System
12. Allocation of Benefits
13. Empirical Studies

   Transportation and Logistics

1. Quantifying Heuristics Effectiveness/Vehicle Routing Problem
2. One-Warehouse Single-Retailer Models
3. One-Warehouse Multi-Retailer Systems
4. Multi-Echelon Systems
5. Warehouse Location Analysis: Customers are served directly from the closest facility
6. Location/Routing Models
7. Network Design: From the carrier's perspective, which links should be serviced?, how often?
8. Divided Ownership and Information Issues
9. Third Party Logistics Providers: Empirical Studies

   Competition and Incentives in Operational Decisions

1. Modeling Competition
2. A Primer on Strategic Incentives
3. Capacity Investments in Competition
4. Capacity Allocation
5. Inventory Decisions under Competition
6. Vertical Coordination Incentives
7. Coordination in Competing Supply Chains: I
8. Coordination in Competing Supply Chains: II a) Observability and Renegotiation b) Empirical Evidence
9. Information Sharing in a (Single) Supply Chain
10. Supply Chain Contracts under Competition
11. Information Sharing under Competition
12. Transaction Costs and Incomplete Contracts
13. Impact of IT on Supply Chain Relations and Coordination Mechanisms

   Inventory Theory

1. Deterministic Systems
2. Time varying demands, multiple products and locations
3. Multi-echelon systems with deterministic demand
4. Stochastic demand with constant lead-time
5. Stochastic demand – periodic review models
6. Stochastic demand with fixed costs (s, S) policies
7. Multi-echelon systems with stochastic demand (constant lead time)
8. Stochastic lead-times and the structure of the supply system (1)
9. Assembly Systems
10. Effect of capacity in multi-echelon systems
11. Inventory and Pricing
12. Value of Information

   Auction Theory

1. Introduction
2. Revenue Equivalence
3. Asymmetric bidders
4. Mechanism Design and T-note auctions
5. Affiliated values and FCC/airwave auctions
6. Clarke-Groves mechanisms, multi-dimensional goods and energy auctions
7. Procurement auctions

   G. Markov Decision Processes

1. Finite horizon theory and basic value iteration
2. Introduction to archetypal problem classes
3. Discussion of numerical solutions and introduction to infinite-horizon models
4. Analytical structure in inventory problems
5. Analytical structure in machine maintenance problems
6. Analytical structure in optimal stopping problems
7. Lattice programming, monotone value functions and policies

   Technology Management

1. Industrial dynamics
2. Strategy, Diversity and Internal Organization
3. Internal Organization (inertia and core competencies)
4. The nature of innovation
5. Organizing for new product innovations
6. Models for information flows and development process capacity
7. R&D project portfolio management
8. Exploration vs Exploitation I: Models for learning at cost
9. Exploration vs Exploitation II: Bandit problems
10. Managing internal knowledge

   Customer Behavior in Operations

1. Learning and Pricing
2. Basic (Clearance) Sales Model
3. Pricing of Short Life-Cycle Product (Price for Individual Customer)
4. Product Life Cycle and Market Evolution
5. Bundling
6. Advance Selling
7. Distribution Channels
8. Queuing and Price
9. Strategic Consumers
10. Product Line Decision (Product assortment decision.)
11. Switching Costs
12. Promotion

   Supply Chain Management

1. Inventory Theory
2. Multi-echelon structures
3. VMI and outsourcing
4. Inventory and pricing - centralized
5. Modeling Exchange risk
6. Advanced demand information
7. Proportional yield and uncertain capacity
8. Games, incentives, information
9. Inventory and pricing in decentralized systems
10. Capacity and entry deterrence
11. Substitution
12. Decentralized systems – wholesale price and coordination

   Theories of Procurement

1. Single source models I: Basic auction theory
2. Single source models II: Mechanism design, Multi-attribute auctions
3. Single source models III: Capacity investment, Auctions with bidder qualification checks
4. Multiple source models I: Split award contracts, Quantity flexible contracts
5. Multiple source models II: Entry fees, Repeated source events
6. Competitive bidding and moral hazard
7. Option and spot market with forward contracts
8. Multiple source models III: Combinatorial auctions, Topology of buyer-seller networks

  

1. Single resource capacity control and rationing
2. Theory of Pricing: Part I
3. Theory of Pricing: Part II
4. Multi-product Pricing Strategy
5. Consumer Choice Model
6. Departures from classical demand models: Strategic and Myopic Consumers
7. Departures from classical demand models: Reference Price and Quantity Effect

   Logistic Networks: Theory and Applications

1. Models, formulations and solution concepts
2. Cost recovery and duality
3. Monopolist’s distribution locations
4. Selfish routing and network control
5. Competitive location
6. Truckload transportation

   Value of Information & Risk Management

1. Value of Information
2. Value of Information and Effect of Response Time
3. Value of Centralized Systems
4. Bullwhip Effect
5. Risk and Hedging
6. Operations and Financial Constraints
7. Disruption Risks

  

1. Birth-death queues, time reversibility, stochastic orders
2. Jackson networks: Open, closed and semi-open networks
3. Stochastic Comparisons: Likelihood Ratio Ordering
4. Kelly Networks, Quasi Reversibility, PASTA Property
5. Heavy Traffic and Fluid Limits of Queues