Department of Operations and Business Analytics

A Message from the Department

The mission of the department is to provide world class research, teaching and outreach in all areas of operations, purchasing and supply chain management. The department offers core courses in operations management, data analysis and business analytics to all of Fisher’s undergraduate students, as well as electives in various aspects of the disciplines.

The MBA program in Supply Chain Management and Logistics is ranked 6th and the undergraduate program in Production and Operations Management is ranked 2nd by U.S. News and World Report (2022). The department developed and delivers the Masters of Business Operational Excellence (MBOE) graduate program, and makes substantial contributions to the Full Time, Working Professional and Executive MBA programs.

Students from both the undergraduate and graduate programs consistently land jobs at Fortune 500 companies, in positions including operational improvement, operations planning and supply chain consulting.

The department has long been a leader in the area of empirically focused, managerially relevant operations and supply chain management research. As a group, the department is currently ranked 7th in the world in publications in the Journal of Operations Management {JOM} , Productions and Operations Management {POM}, and Manufacturing and Service Operations Management {M&SOM}(2017-2021).

The PhD program has more than 65 alumni, including faculty who now teach at several dozen schools and have held key leadership positions in the field, including President/Fellow of Decision Sciences Institute, Editor of Journal of Operations Management as well as Decision Sciences and Treasurer of INFORMS.

The Center for Operational Excellence (COE), affiliated with the department, connects its nearly 40 corporate members with the global process improvement community through event programming, networking opportunities and best-practice benchmarking. COE also connects industry with Operations and Business Analytics’ research and Fisher’s operations-focused undergraduate and graduate students.