Operations Management Outside of the Classroom: An Experiential Approach to Teaching Enabled by Online Learning

This paper describes the design of an experiential approach to teaching operations management (OM) at New York University Stern School of Business. OM students study the design and management of the supply side of business, including how products are produced and how services are supplied. The course discussed in this paper is unique in that students learn operations while visiting real companies and organizations. The foundational concepts are not taught in classroom lectures, but through video minilectures, demonstrations, group work sessions, and practice problems that are available online and can be accessed at any time. This allows for classroom time to be spent interacting with OM leaders in companies throughout NYC. The city becomes the classroom, and students witness the OM processes of real companies through direct onsite observation and discussions with field experts and professionals as well as with their own peers