Michael F. Gorman

Evaluating Operations Management--Related Journals via the Author Affiliation Index

We evaluate operations management--related journals based on a novel indicator of journal quality--the Author Affiliation Index (AAI). We explain the basic rationale behind the AAI, as well as its advantages and disadvantages with respect to other such indicators of journal quality. We provide a specific recipe for its calculation and apply it to 27 journals in which researchers in the field of operations management might wish to publish. We compare the resulting journal rankings to those from published survey reports and citation analyses and test AAI for sensitivity to its inputs. We find the rankings from AAI to be consistent with other studies and to be robust with respect to changes in inputs.

Benchmarking Academic Programs in Business Analytics

Interest in business analytics (BA) is currently popular. Professional consultancies and software houses are both touting it as the next wave in business, claiming that the need for BA skills is large and growing. Universities are beginning to respond by offering undergraduate majors and minors, Master of Science degrees, certificates, and concentrations within their Master of Business Administration programs. But what subjects are being covered in these programs? We surveyed some of the largest, most established, and best-known programs (predominantly in the United States, but some international) and interviewed representatives of these programs to better understand the requirements for students entering, the required and elective course topics covered, and job opportunities for graduates. In this article, we summarize our findings and provide some conclusions about analytics programs, including the current landscape, suggestions for development, and our vision for the future. We believe this report is useful to institutions that offer analytics programs, to those considering such offerings, and to the employers who are hiring analytics professionals. These employers need to better understand the skills that professionals are acquiring. Finally, it should help prospective students who seek to understand the analytics programs being offered to find the best match for their skills and interests.

State of the Practice: A Review of the Application of OR/MS in Freight Transportation

Freight transportation is an important part of the global supply chain. As distances shipped grow and supply chains become more complex and fragile, operations research OR can play an important role in improving the efficiency and robustness of supply networks. This article describes the state of the practice in OR and freight transportation, highlighting recent successful and widely used analytical techniques in oceanic transportation and port operations, and barge, freight rail, intermodal, truckload, less than truckload, and air freight transportation, as well as the use of OR techniques in third-party logistics.

The University of Dayton Operations Management Capstone Course: Undergraduate Student Field Consulting Applies Theory to Practice

The operations management major at the University of Dayton offers a unique capstone experience that features live consulting projects with actual client problems. As a result, students gain valuable experience applying technical skills in a live environment, and clients gain real operations improvements. In the past eight years we have graduated 163 students who have conducted 56 projects for 22 clients. This paper describes how the course is structured, observations of faculty and clients on best practices and risks associated with such an offering, and as evidence of success, the quantitative and qualitative impact the student-led projects have had on clients.

Note---“OM Forum: Evaluating Operations Management--Related Journals via the Author Affiliation Index”---Do Professors at Top U.S. Business Schools Do What They Say?

In Gorman and Kanet (2005) we introduced the Author Affiliation Index (AAI) and how it could be used to rate the quality of operations management-related journals. Since then, Olson (2005) surveyed operations management professors from top U.S. universities and reported their assessment of the quality of various operations management-related journals. This paper compares the results of these two studies and concludes that patterns of research publications match the surveyed opinions from top U.S. universities, or that researchers publish in journals they rate as top. We confirm our earlier finding that the AAI is comparable to surveys for assessing journal quality.

CSX Railway Uses OR to Cash In on Optimized Equipment Distribution

Each day, CSX Railway allocates hundreds of empty railcars among hundreds of customer car orders. In 1997, it implemented the US rail industrys first real-time, fully integrated equipment-distribution optimization system, the dynamic car-planning system (DCP). DCP seamlessly integrates operations research modeling into CSXs process that assigns empty cars to customer car orders. CSX estimates that the DCP system saves the company more than

Seasonality and the production-smoothing model

51 million annually and has saved

A Case Study in Effectively Bridging the Business Skills Gap for the Information Technology Professional

561 million since its implementation. DCP has also provided

ASP, The Art and Science of Practice: Tales from the Front: Case Studies Indicate the Potential Pitfalls of Misapplication of Lean Improvement Programs

1.4 billion in capital-expenditure avoidance because of more efficient car allocation. Fewer railcars yield improved return on assets and reduced congestion on the CSX rail network. Customer satisfaction has also increased because of improved empty-car delivery. Public benefits include improved highway safety; reductions in congestion, pollution, and greenhouse gases; and reduced tax-supported road maintenance, thus saving an estimated

Student Reactions to the Field Consulting Capstone Course in Operations Management at the University of Dayton

600 million.