No More Boring Classes: 3 Exercises for Operations Management Exercises

Operations management is a tough subject to teach. Unlike marketing and management, which students have often encountered as consumers or working in front-end positions, operations management is unseen by most consumers.

Very few of my students have been inside a factory or visited a railyard, port, or distribution center. So, the challenge is to bring the context to my students in a way that is simple but meaningful.

I’ve found that active learning is a powerful tool for understanding, retention, and application of new concepts. Research shows that when students’ psychomotor functions are engaged by using their hands to place, sort, combine, etc., they retain the ideas longer and apply them more readily.

Neurobiologists have used active Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to study the learning process. They’ve identified that when learning activities require students to access different areas of the brain where information is stored, they create new neural pathways. This allows students to access this information more quickly the next time.

Rather than lecture all the time, I wanted to provide students with the context they lacked, specifically in operations management. I had some experience with active and experiential learning from workplace training and a non-traditional education myself, so I began building classroom exercises I could use to supplement the text, lectures, and math.

Today, I’m sharing three of these exercises. For the full list and instructions, check out my new book, No More Boring Classes: Active Learning Exercises for the Operations Management Classroom.

1. Shipping Shapes Across the Classroom

This exercise teaches students how the different elements of a supply chain work together. I have students on one end of the classroom cut out paper shapes  as fast as they can. Another set of students then delivers them to a distribution center in the middle of the room, which is operated by two more students. Finally, students on the far side of the room order shapes from the distribution center to fit into a template.

Through this activity, I’m able to point out flow-blocking and lack of work delays. It also simulates reverse logistics when a poor quality product reaches the assembly area.

2. Project Management with Building Blocks

To give students hands-on experience in Project Management, purchase a 3-in-1 LEGO® set. I go through the set and separate all the pieces into types—red pieces, black pieces, etc. I put each type of piece in a different part of the room with a different “supplier.” Student teams must then build their LEGO® set, ordering and transporting all the pieces they need from various suppliers.

I do this project at the beginning, middle, and end of the course. In the second and third iterations later in the semester, students are able to relate their experience to newly learned principles and to apply lessons learned in the first iterations.

3. Assembly Time Study

In this activity, students attach a spring between two points with three different fasteners while another student times them. After they have an average assembly time for each method, a worksheet helps them calculate their labor cost, parts cost, and their expected reliability at scale. This exercise leads to a discussion about the iron triangle of quality, cost, and time.

Bring Everything Together with a Strong Business Simulation

A strong business simulation lets students apply each activity’s lessons in a realistic business environment. Marketplace’s Conscious Capitalism simulation is the best business game I have found for highlighting the complexity and interconnectedness of business decisions. Students see how decisions made in one area—operations, marketing, finance—affect and are affected by the others.

Some of my favorite moments in class are when students get their results from a quarter, are disappointed, and then dig into the many reports and charts for answers. They may realize that their marketing, for example, performed well but that they did not produce enough product to meet customer demand. By doing this, they see the effect of one decision on another as well as how all the choices they’ve made affect the bottom line.

Requiring students to spend much of their out-of-class time in a simulation, reading their e-book, or completing homework assignments (the flipped-classroom model) frees up lots of time in-class for discussion and activities.

Trust is the Foundation

During the first week of class, I show my students the iconic “wax on, wax off” scene from The Karate Kid, explaining to them that some things are better learned by doing. As Dr. Ernie Cadotte put it, “You train your muscles to perform the motion so your mind can focus on strategy.”

For teachers, I would add that, just as the Karate Kid scene demonstrates, this type of teaching requires two-way trust between the teacher and the student. The student must trust that whatever activity the teacher has prepared will be beneficial. Likewise, the teacher must trust that the student will actively participate and give the activity their attention.

As you implement these exercises with your class, trust will grow in both directions—and so will the learning potential.

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Dr. Benton Jones
Assistant Professor of Business & Director of DBA, Bryan College

Dr. Jones spent over a decade managing operations functions in the manufacturing sector. Drawing upon his extensive knowledge, he now imparts valuable insights to students enrolled in Business and Management courses across both the undergraduate and graduate programs at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. His dedication to teaching, leadership, and program coordination serves to enrich the educational experience for students and colleagues alike.