DBA in Supply Chain, Operations and Technology

Be a leader in managing supply lines, projects and operating with excellence.

The completion of the DBA in Supply Chain, Operations and Technology program requires 72 credit hours of graduate coursework in supply chain and operations topics. DBA students must maintain satisfactory academic progress; pass examinations and paper requirements; and write, submit and defend a doctoral thesis.

All students are expected to finish the program within four years on a full-time basis or within five to six years on a part-time basis.

Required Courses (48 credits)

Required courses provide you with basic knowledge in operations and supply chain management including:

• Operational excellence in process management and lean operations
• Agile project management for operational and product development/innovation environments
• Supply chain management principles and best practices
• Operational risk management in global supply chains
• Supply chain finance concepts and practices for effective working capital management of global businesses

These courses also provide basic knowledge in operations research, optimization, stochastic methods, simulation, statistics and empirical research methods.

View the curriculum (PDF).

Research (24 credits)

Research credits finalize your DBA coursework. Independent Studies, Research Assistantships and Directed Readings account for 12 credit units and doctoral thesis work accounts for 12 credit units. After successfully passing the qualifying exams (or field exams), you write an extended research paper under the guidance of a faculty member in preparation for your thesis proposal. That faculty member advises you throughout the stages of the thesis—proposal, research, writing and defense—and serves on the thesis and defense committees.

Qualifying Exams

Comprehensive field examinations should be completed within six months of the conclusion of required coursework (normally within two to three years). The examination committee is composed of your faculty advisor and two other faculty members.

Doctoral Thesis

After completion of 48 units of DBA coursework and passing the qualifying exams, you begin research for your doctoral thesis. As a DBA student, you prepare your thesis proposal in consultation with your faculty advisor and the approval of the research advisory committee and program director. Once complete, you defend your doctoral thesis in an oral presentation to your advisory committee. The committee assigns a passing grade, assigns a failing grade or requests revisions in order for you to receive a passing grade.

Supply Chain, Operations and Technology Faculty and Research

Our faculty members in supply chain, operations and technology have strong engineering backgrounds. Their research investigates a broad spectrum of issues, especially areas with strategic and tactical implications. They use quantitative models and analysis to address issues with real-life implications in industry and service organizations.

Recently, their research has focused on global supply chain design, vendor-managed inventory practices, collaborative forecasting, sourcing contracts, dynamic pricing and revenue management, marketing/operations interfaces, information distortion and the bullwhip effect, information technology uses for improved supply chain performance, inventory management, design and control of queuing systems, and time-based competition and mass customization.

Faculty research has appeared in a variety of leading journals, including:

• Management Science
• Operations Research
• Manufacturing and Service Operations Management
• Production and Operations Management