Using Homemade, Short, Fictional Cases for Teaching the Theory of Constraints

Ryan K. Orchard ()
Additional contact information
Ryan K. Orchard: Department of Decision Sciences, School of Business, MacEwan University, Edmonton T5J 4S2, Canada

INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2019, vol. 19, issue 2, 81-88

Abstract: For our undergraduate Operations Management course, a lack of case studies meeting our specific needs, coupled with our reluctance to reuse cases too frequently, inspired development of a collection of “homemade” cases. These cases, which focus on application of the Theory of Constraints, are fictional (of necessity) and short (by design); however, we have found that these two characteristics have not limited the effectiveness of the case assignments: They are consistently meeting our pedagogical objectives, including eliciting deliberation and varied responses from students. This paper discusses the motivation for developing homemade cases, the nature of the cases (short, fictional) and associated implications, advice for development and implementation, and feedback from students.

Keywords: cases; fictional cases; short cases; theory of constraints; constraint management; teaching production/operations management; teaching service operations management; teaching with cases (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2017.0190 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orited:v:19:y:2019:i:2:p:81-88

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in INFORMS Transactions on Education from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().