Gerard Cachon (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) Professor Cachon is the Fred R. Sullivan Professor of Operations, Information, and Decisions and a Professor of Marketing. He teaches a variety of undergraduate, MBA, executive, and PhD courses in operations management. His research focuses on operations strategy, and in particular, on how operations are used to gain competitive advantage.

His administrative responsibilities have included Chair of the Operations, Information and Decisions Department, Vice Dean of Strategic Initiatives for the Wharton School, and President of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Society. He has been named an INFORMS Fellow and a Distinguished Fellow of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Society.

His articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Management Science, Marketing Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Operations Research. He is the former editor-in-chief of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Management Science. He has consulted with a wide range of companies, including 4R Systems, Ahold, Americold, Campbell Soup, Gulfstream Aerospace, IBM, Medtronic, and O'Neill.

Before joining The Wharton School in July 2000, Professor Cachon was on the faculty at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. He received a PhD from The Wharton School in 1995.

He is an avid proponent of bicycle commuting (and other environmentally friendly modes of transportation). Along with his wife and 4 children he enjoys hiking, scuba diving, and photography.

1. Introduction

2. The Process View of the Organization

3. Understanding the Supply Process: Evaluating Process Capacity

4. Estimating and Reducing Labor Costs

5. Batching and Other Flow Interruptions: Setup Times and the Economic Order Quantity Model

6. The Link between Operations and Finance

7. Quality and Statistical Process Control

8. Lean Operations and the Toyota Production System

9. Variability and Its Impact on Process Performance: Waiting Time Problems

10. The Impact of Variability on Process Performance: Throughput Losses

11. Scheduling to Prioritize Demand

12. Project Management

13. Forecasting

14. Betting on Uncertain Demand: The Newsvendor Model

15. Assemble-to-Order, Make-to-Order, and Quick Response with Reactive Capacity

16. Service Levels and Lead Times in Supply Chains: The Order-up-to Inventory Model

17. Risk-Pooling Strategies to Reduce and Hedge Uncertainty

18. Revenue Management with Capacity Controls

19. Supply Chain Coordination

APPENDICES

1. Statistics Tutorial

2. Tables

3. Evaluation of the Expected Inventory and Loss Functions

4. Equations and Approximations