Master’s in Operations & Supply Chain Analytics
The ability to effectively deliver products and services is core to organizational success. While striving for excellence in internal operations, organizations in virtually every industry rely on intricate supply chains to globally manage goods and meet the demand for products and services. Synchronizing the flow of products, information, and funds is complex, increasingly enabled by data, analytics, and new technologies.
WPI’s master’s in Operations and Supply Chain Analytics, a STEM-designated degree, prepares students for a career in managing the global demands, distributions, and fulfillment of goods and services. The MS in Operations and Supply Chain Analytics provides students the skills and hands-on project management techniques necessary to design and manage an effective supply chain while understanding how to create excellence in your operations and processes. As each of these factors can impact an organization’s profitability and overall customer satisfaction, professionals with training in both operations management and supply chain become an essential part of a company’s leadership team.
The operations and supply chain master’s degree is designed to provide students with a foundation in three areas:
- Operations: internally focused, with an emphasis in the market on achieving excellence
- Supply chain: designing and managing a network to support end-to-end delivery of goods and services
- Operations analytics: methods to harness insights from data and support decision making
Students then build depth by choosing specialties in two of these three areas. The operations and supply chain analytics master's degree culminates in a real-world, team-based project, which ensures that students are prepared to be successful in a data-driven, technological business environment.
A Premier STEM Business Degree, More Affordable Tuition
There is a pressing need for engineers, scientists, and coders with business acumen and management skills. WPI is committed to making STEM education more attainable, and The Business School is doing its part by reducing its tuition for graduate programs. Today, a premier degree from WPI’s business school is more affordable than ever—meaning you can see a high return on investment from your degree even sooner.
The Business School, established at a premier technology-focused university, has world-class expertise and educational resources in technology and business, and thus is suitably poised to offer valuable graduate-level programs that prepare students to apply entrepreneurial thinking and transform into leadership roles.
Curriculum
Curriculum for the Master’s in Operations and Supply Chain Analytics
The Master’s in Operations and Supply Chain Analytics can be completed on a part-time or full-time basis and is designed as a stackable, professional master’s degree. As such, it includes courses focused on decision-making in the operations and supply chain domain, as well as on analytic methods and a realistic capstone project. The degree requires at least 33 credits hours of study, i.e., eleven 3-credit courses. Courses listed in multiple specialties cannot be double-counted.
Students must complete two three-course specialties, selected from the following:
Specialty in Supply Chain Management
Choose one course from:
- OIE 553. Global Purchasing and Logistics
- OIE 549. Sustainable Supply Chain and Operations Management
Choose two courses from:
- MKT 561. Consumer Behavior and Analytics
- OBC 533. Negotiations
- OIE 553. Global Purchasing and Logistics
- OIE 548. Performance Analytics
- OIE 549. Sustainable Supply Chain and Operations Management
Specialty in Advanced Operations Analytics
Choose 3 courses from:
- MIS 587. Business Applications in Machine Learning or MKT 562 Marketing Research OR MKT 568 Data Mining
- OIE 542. Risk Management and Decision Analysis
- OIE 548. Performance Analytics
- OIE 559. Advanced Prescriptive Analytics: From Data to Impact
Specialty in Operational Excellence
Choose one course from:
- OIE 554. Global Operations Strategy
- OIE 558. Designing and Managing Lean Six Sigma Processes
Choose 2 courses from:
- FIN 500. Financial Information and Management
- MIS 576. Project Management
- OBC 537. Leading Change
- OIE 554. Global Operations Strategy
- OIE 558. Designing and Managing Lean Six Sigma Processes
Students must complete a two-course capstone project experience as follows:
- OBC 505. Teaming and Organizing for Innovation
- OIE 597. Operations and Supply Chain Consulting Project
Alternative Specialties
Custom specialty (requires approval; see catalog description)
Research specialty (requires approval; see catalog description)
Additional Recommendation
- On-campus, international students are encouraged to complete up to three additional credits of internship to ensure their readiness for employment in the U.S.
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I enjoy teaching at WPI because students bring a lot of energy and enthusiasm to their learning, and I am often inspired by their optimism. My teaching also reflects topics that motivate me: detailed process design in our Industrial Engineering program, improving healthcare delivery as part of the Health Systems Innovation certificate, and exploring the implications of operational excellence in our MBA program.
The application of Industrial Engineering and mathematical knowledge has always been a rewarding challenge for me. I draw on a variety of Industrial Engineering techniques including optimization and simulation. My research has included evaluating anti-human trafficking efforts, computationally characterizing episodes of care from health insurance claim records, and examining the impact of physician incentives on patient outcomes, as well as research related to mental health, patient flow and practice guidelines.
My research agenda takes advantage of my educational background. The first area of research is supply chain networks equilibrium. In this research stream, I model supply chain networks to understand the interactions of agents who act in their own self-interest and their impact to business and society. A broad class of research question in this area is motivated by the interaction between supply chain networks and sustainable and responsible decision-making. The focus in my second area of research is on Blockchain technology contributions in the supply chain networks.
Joseph Sarkis is a Professor of Management within Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Business School. He previously served as a faculty member at Clark University and the University of Texas at Arlington. His teaching and research interests are in the fields of environmental sustainability, operations and supply chain management. He is the author or co-author of over 500 publications. His research is widely cited and earned the designation of highly cited researcher for seven years from 2016-2022 from Thomson-Reuters/Clarivate Analytics (Web-of-Science).
I am interested in manufacturing and industrial engineering. My main interests lie at the intersection of manufacturing processes and the financial aspect of the business that relates to these processes. I see my mission as enabling students to become leaders in a business environment and helping them extract value from the processes that drive the organization. We do this by using tools like axiomatic design and Lean Six Sigma methods.
I am Associate Professor of Operations and Industrial Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), with courtesy professorships in Mathematical Sciences and Data Science. I hold a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. My objective is to use science and technology to assist real human need by improving systems that serve vulnerable peoples, such as refugees and asylum seekers, survivors of human trafficking, and children in the foster care system.
Joe Zhu is Professor of Operations Analytics in the Business School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is an internationally recognized expert in methods of performance evaluation and benchmarking using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and his research interests are in the areas of operations and business analytics, productivity modeling, and performance evaluation and benchmarking. He has published and co-edited several books focusing on performance evaluation and benchmarking using DEA and developed the DEAFrontier software.