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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Operations Management by University of Pennsylvania

4.4
stars
2,630 ratings

About the Course

This comprehensive course delves into operations management and process improvement principles and techniques, providing you with the knowledge and skills necessary to identify and eliminate inefficiencies in your organization. You will gain a solid foundation in operations management by analyzing key concepts such as cost-quality trade-offs, the efficiency frontier, and system inhibitors. Get ready to delve into process analysis, where you'll identify and analyze steps in a process, implementing changes for enhanced outcomes. With practical exercises, including creating process flow diagrams and capacity calculations, you'll strengthen your analytical skills firsthand. Experience the power of optimizing flow within operations as you uncover waste sources and design efficient processes for maximum output, reduced costs, and heightened customer satisfaction. An in-depth exploration of Little's Law will equip you to make informed decisions on capacity planning and process improvements, optimizing inventory levels, reducing lead times, and enhancing supply chain coordination. Additionally, you'll learn to effectively manage variability, laying the groundwork for consistent and exceptional quality standards. Statistical analysis, problem-solving methodologies, and real-time information utilization will empower you to tackle issues, find root causes, and foster continuous improvement. Throughout the course, the focus remains on driving improvements and achieving excellence. Analyze, improve, and reimagine how work gets done, armed with the necessary tools and frameworks to enhance work processes across diverse industries. Join this course to analyze, improve, and reimagine how work gets done and to acquire the necessary tools and knowledge to make meaningful improvements in your organization's operations....

Top reviews

KR

Aug 24, 2020

Great Instruction by Prof Christian - very lucid and with real world examples. Learning a business skill is mostly learning observation.. Now I know what to observe when looking for productivity!

RE

Jan 28, 2021

I found this course to be very informational; the practice and homework were excellent to prepare for the exams, and the instructor covered all material in the lectures that was on the exams.

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501 - 525 of 597 Reviews for Introduction to Operations Management

By KOLPE G P

•

May 2, 2023

good

By Ngawang P

•

Mar 27, 2019

nice

By Deleted A

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Apr 6, 2020

4.5

By Andrew F

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Feb 9, 2016

What I liked:

1. The scope of subject material covered was awesome and seems useful.

2. I L O V E D that there were practice videos where Mr. Terwiesch went over sample questions and let you try to work them out before he showed the solutions. This helped IMMENSELY. (saved the course in my opinion.)

What I didn't like:

1. Question ambiguity annoyed me more than anything else. Questions MUST be 100% clear on what is expected and how things are working. This was a huge piss off. Mr Terwiesch was pretty bad with not being detailed enough in his explanations, I'd find myself having to retake a quiz just to test whether he meant one way or another possible stance.

2. Sloppy hand writing was nearly impossible to read. Can Profs please take 30% extra time to write a little more clean? (Just a minor thing.)

3. There were many other pedagogical missteps. Which order you introduce concepts and how you explain them is just as important as what your course material is. Please pay more attention to this in the future. For example in Module 3 exam there was a question about a wind tunnel which seemed to be dealing with rework time, yet rework wasn't covered in detail until Module 4.

4. Adding a little humor here and there would've been nice, I've seen other profs do this and I love it. (This is more a personal taste kind of thing, and not a huge problem.)

By Hernando E

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Apr 29, 2020

The topic was very interesting, and I enjoyed the Professor's lecturing style.

The reason that I didn't give at least a 4-star rating is that as the course went on, I think the pace that the information was presented in became too rapid for an introductory course.

I don't recommend attempting the course unless you have some experience with statistics (particularly calculating probabilities).

Also, a few of the questions on the quizzes would be virtually impossible to answer unless you have (and are at least somewhat proficient with) Microsoft Excel.

I think more of a balance between testing for knowledge of theory and making calculations would be a little bit better for an introductory course.

Maybe this course's heavy emphasis on choosing the proper formulas and calculating them correctly would have been better placed in a course that isn't called introductory.

By Manuel A M G

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Aug 30, 2023

El contenido del curso me ha parecido muy interesante, pero creo que los exámenes/tests y los videos no están en orden (sobre todo en los examenes como pocas preguntas da la sensación de que se preguntan conceptos que se explican en vídeos posteriores).

Además las manera de corregir las preguntas numéricas es un desastre, teniendo que meter la misma respuesta varias veces para ajustar el número de decimales, redondear el último decimal o incluso tener que usar un punto para los poner los millares (1.300) algo que en ningún otro curso ha sido necesario.

Es cierto que hay preguntas donde se indica el formato aceptado por la pregunta, pero no en todas y tampoco se dice nada de redondear o no.

Creo que es importante arreglar esto porque causa mucha confusión al no saber si lo que está mal es la respuesta en sí o el cálculo

By Sarah E

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Jun 14, 2017

I appreciated the extra problem sets included at the end of each week. The material was pretty interesting. However, quiz questions (especially quiz #2) could be vague and difficult to interpret, and they often take 3-5 times longer to complete than the time listed. Most everything is calculations (not multiple choice), and there are no hints after completing a quiz to help you find out what you did incorrectly. Thus, it can take numerous tries to pass a quiz if you are rounding something incorrectly or made a small calculation error. With respect to the lecture videos, the volume is very low, especially on the earlier videos in week 1. The slides have a lot of small text and are hard to read. The instructor's handwriting is difficult to read, which can make it tough to follow along as he solves problems.

By JENNIFER P

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Aug 24, 2020

The material was well presented, and examples close enough to real life to be useful were presented to better understand the material. The downfall is that no corrections are offered for quizes or exams. I am left not having a full grasp of 2 concepts/problems in particular because a) the discussion platform takes a decent amount of back and forth; and I would trust replies from a T.A. or professor, but not necessarily from other students in the class, and b) corrections and problem solving steps are not available on quiz/exam platform. Despite having reviewed material and test questions multiple times, getting full understanding of material is hard without more access to corrections.

By HeavMeT

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Aug 31, 2023

I really like this course and find it very useful and informative, and really like lecturer.

BUT there is need to be done something with the quizzes. Not everywhere in the questions are said at what format should answer be. For example, I do calculations and have an answer 0.6666666..... And you need to figure out what answer does the program needs.

It can be 0.6667, 0,667, 0,67 or in maybe in percentage 66.6667%, 66.667. Or maybe I'd done wrong calculations and try it over and over. This thing is driving me crazy, and steal a lot of time

By Alex K

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Feb 9, 2019

some of the language used in the quizzes and practice questions for the various modules is very unclear and does not interpret accurately. the course is stale at this point: there is no longer active discussion in the forums and no way to check for answers to exam questions that never ended up being clear (such as due to language interpretation issues). the explanations from the mentors are not very good from what I've read, since they are most concerned about giving away answers even to practice problems.

By michele b

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Jan 3, 2016

I found the course very useful: it was easy to see practical applications for many of the topics discussed, and hence to quickly put in action what I learned.

The course is well structured and has a good balance between the theory and the exercises, and part of the solutions are provided in step-by-step videos.

However, the quality of the slides is not always the best and the handwriting by Prof. Terwiesch does not help. Also, it was not easy to follow the parts of the lectures when excel was used.

By Caio A V

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Nov 1, 2016

Far from the best and below the average quality of Wharton's courses, has plenty of critical technical video issues that detract one's experience and easily misguide a good understanding.

Even though, if you compensate this by taking into account the extraordinary effort Wharton's teachers have been putting on their courses and accepting as a personal challenge, you certainly will learn admirable and fundamental efficient skills regarding the operational process and decision-making process.

By Andrew H

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Mar 16, 2020

I would rate this higher than 3 stars because I learned quite a lot, if not for the wording and scant instructions as to rounding on some of the quizzes, in particular Week 3. I managed to pass most of the quizzes on the first attempt, but only after looking and getting tips in the forums on how many decimals to round to. In Week 3 Quiz, there is also a set of problems poorly worded which lead to two equally reasonable logical assumptions being possible- so that one should be fixed.

By Leo N

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Dec 25, 2021

The course is a good introduction to the Operations Management. However, I do not recommend taking it because the quizzes and exams are badly designed. It does not have any feedbacks to you to help you understand why you're right or wrong. Thus you have to take a lot of time to rewatch the video (very blurred btw) again and again. If in each quiz the instructor can explain the answer, it would make the course much better.

By J C

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Dec 31, 2017

Great information, but it is difficult to understand the professor and read his handwriting which makes the course difficult to follow. There are a number of discrepancies between the material shown in the video and the materials provided for download which can create some confusion. It would be helpful if the professor would clearly outline the various formula and calculations used and reference them consistently.

By Anushree

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Oct 25, 2021

The course is well explained. There is only one drawback to the course, that is, lack of well-explained examples for mathematical problems and absence of non-mathematical questions in the homework assignments. Please increase the number of solved explanations for mathematical problems and also add non-mathematical questions in the homework assignments, to improve the ratings of the course.

By Gabriel F

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Jul 9, 2016

OK, the course starts a bit confusing and boring, but it gets better after the second week. The last week is actually very, very interesting. Handwriting is perhaps not the best thing to offer in the presentations. But the main problem of the course are the tests, by far the most difficult I ever had in coursera. Time to devote per week is way over the estimated 4/5 hours.

By Daniel M

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Jan 13, 2018

I found the content to be very good. That said, I believe a few of the items on the exams provided enough deviation in scenario that the subject should be covered in more detail (example...processing demand flow) or the questions should be more specific so as not to have the tester assume or "read-in" to any variable. Again...enjoyed the learning experience.

By Lovepreet S

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Jun 22, 2021

The professor could put more emphasis on topics that are tested on during the assignments. Some of the more informative examples are in the review instead of in the initial course material which I found to be idle. Overall, the professor put in a lot of effort to make the material engaging and practical which is great!

By Dayo-Dunmoye, D

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Jul 18, 2017

This course seem mechanical the fluid of it is lost on me. I find it as difficult as i did 4 years ago when i first attempted it on this platform. I need to say though that the content is relevant but it just seemed for difficult to grasp. i will revisit it IF the delivery is changed or modified to be user-friendly.

By Alivia W

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Apr 22, 2020

In general a very great course with good organization and useful materials. However, comparing to other courses in the specialization, this course is significantly heavier in workload. To add, many questions in homework and exams show no similarities with questions covered in materials and gave no feedback.

By Joshua N

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Aug 1, 2023

Great course, clear and straightforward teaching. However, quizzes are a nightmare and not because they are difficult but because the answer formats (decimal places, to exclude '%' are not consistent across weeks and quizzes. Read the discussion forums as the formats are posted there by helpful strangers

By Nathan K

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Jan 29, 2019

I found it a little hard to follow along and some of the assignments were difficult to solve because of lack of reference resources (in the course or discussion forms). The course was overall very good but I think it could be made better if delivered better.

By 于一铭

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Dec 7, 2018

I think for calculations there should be a sample answer so that students can know what's wrong with theim when their own answer is wrong. It's just so painful for me to go over and over again with these exams without knowing what's wrong with my answer.

By Choudary j

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Aug 16, 2020

The material was rushed and some parts were not well explained. I understand the time constraints to cover a large course. Like in Toyota Management style, Its better to be good at some concepts rather than be average at all concepts.