All businesses need to get their goods or services to customers. And people who major in operations and supply management help design and improve the way they do it.
The 11-year-old major at Dayton has about 40 graduates per year, and most go straight into the workforce, although some pursue a master’s degree in business administration, said professor Michael Gorman.
“If you’re the type of person who likes to think about problems and ways to do things better, then you’re probably going to like operations,” he said.
“It’s a very good degree path, but you do have to be someone who really loves complex problem solving,” said Sylvie Stewart, career advisor to UD’s business school. “Someone who is going to monitor processes and then have the ability to strategically think about how to improve them.”
Gorman said awareness of the major is a challenge in recruiting students. “We try to dispel this thought that operations is working on a factory floor, which it can be. But it’s much more than that,” he said.
“Because operations majors deal with such a fundamental part of a business, they’re likely to be the most valued employees,” he said.
Sean Holdmeyer, a 2013 graduate, said meeting professionals in the field and working with General Electric during his capstone course affirmed his decision to enter to field.
Holdmeyer was recently hired as an energy operations consulting associate with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
“Operations is the foundation of business,” he said. “If you can’t operate effectively and efficiently, your business will fail or fall behind the times.”
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