Course content
The core modules are taught together with our MSc in Business Analytics & Consulting. However, the non-shared core modules of our MSc MSOR focus much more on the mathematical and statistical aspects of modelling and optimisation.
When you graduate from us, you will be able to design and implement management interventions, employ a range of OR and systems methods and techniques, use a range of relevant software, and demonstrate your awareness of specific managerial issues.
Core modules
- Advanced Data Analysis
- Explore a range of sophisticated statistical methods to convert information into knowledge. Gain practical experience in the use of specialised software to analyse large sets of data information, and be able to report on the analysis in a practical way for improved management decision-making.
- Analytic Consulting
- Learn the skills essential for successful consultancy. Explore how to structure problem situations, and formulate, test, and validate models to produce recommendations. Practise a range of modelling approaches exploring the circumstances in which they might most appropriately be applied. Learn to conduct literature reviews, undertake interviews, and make individual and group presentations.
- Business Statistics
- Gain a foundation in the analysis and presentation of quantitative data. Examine the basic elements of probability and statistics, essential to management science and OR, and undertake computer-based analysis using a statistics package.
- Foundations of Management
- Taught by experts from across WBS, this is an intensive introduction to the major components of management: operations management, accounting, and marketing. Consider the theory and practice of these disciplines to understand the context within which management decisions are made.
- Management Science & Operational Research Techniques
- Develop your knowledge and understanding of a wide range of OR techniques, with an emphasis on the role of modelling processes in decision-making. Gain practical experience in using optimisation, simulation, and decision analysis to model practical management problems and evaluate a range of options.
- Mathematical Programming & Heuristics
- Explore contemporary topics in optimisation and see how it can be used effectively in various areas including decision-making processes
and analysis of efficiency.
- Simulation Methods
- Study one of the most commonly used operational research methods. Learn the theory behind simulation modelling, and appreciate the range of applications for which it is useful. Gain practical experience in using commercial simulation software.
- Spreadsheet Modelling
- Get hands-on computing experience with business computing tools, exploring simulation, stochastic processes, and general data management. Expand your conceptual and practical understanding of spreadsheets by building and specifying applications that meet the brief, and are both usable and well-documented.
Elective modules
In previous years we have offered the following electives:
- Decision Analysis Consulting
- Explore the methodologies and techniques of Decision Analysis, a well established and widely applied modelling approach to evaluating strategic decisions. Use mapping approaches to explore managers' mental models about decision situations.
- Forecasting
- Details tbc
- Organisational Performance Analysis
- Appreciate the need to measure the efficiency of resource utilisation in organisations, as competition in the private sector becomes ever more intense and budgets are cut in the public sector. Examine methods for the comparative evaluation of business units.
- Supporting Strategy: Frameworks & Methods
- Study a set of essential elements of the strategic planning process, and explore how models and analytical techniques can support that process. Focus on strategy formulation, systems modelling, uncertainty assessment, and generation and selection of strategic options.
Dissertation
Choose whether to undertake your project & 15,000 word dissertation as a consultant to an organisation or as applied research.
- Consultancy projects
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Working as a consultant for a real client demonstrates to employers that you can apply your knowledge. Test your ability to assess a problem and adopt the best approach to tackling it. Exercise your client liaison and management skills. You will usually write a client report in addition to your dissertation.
Recent projects include:
- UK gas market modelling for an energy supplier
- Maximising sales capacity for a leading building society
- Bias identification in online survey data for a telecommunications company
- An investigation into health inequalities in a regional area
- Understanding the composition of new store growth for a leading supermarket
- Forecasting workload requirements at a telecommunications company
- Modelling airline passenger behaviour for a leading airline.
- Research dissertation
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A research project allows you to explore a topic critical to effective operational analysis and management. Supervised by one of our academics, demonstrate that you can undertake systematic and rigorous technical research.
Recent projects include:
- Robust optimisation for resource management under uncertainty
- A new ant colony optimisation approach to scheduling
- Interval scale data in data envelopment analysis
- Exploration of common random numbers as a variance reduction method
- The steady state/warm-up problem in discrete event simulation modelling
- Tabu search, genetic algorithms, and simulated annealing approaches to scheduling.