MS Engineering Management (MSEM) : College of Engineering : UMass Amherst

Master of Science in Engineering Management (MSEM)

The MSEM degree is a 10-course (30-credit) program that is offered both fully online and on-campus. Students can also choose to take some courses on-campus and some online to accommodate their busy schedules and access the full array of courses the university offers. The new flexible curriculum aims to provide both a management perspective and a solid foundation on engineering methods, while allowing students to craft their own curriculum focusing on their interests and career goals.

Flexible Curriculum

Core I – Management Perspective (Choose at least 3)

Core II – Engineering Methods (Choose at least 3)

The remaining courses can be chosen from a wide selection of electives. Students are encouraged to take graduate courses that deepen and focus their technical expertise. In addition, students can do up to 2 courses as a practicum or independent study working with a faculty advisor and potentially an industrial partner. To complete the full program requirements, students must take at least five program courses from the MIE Department, and no more than three courses outside the MIE and ISOM. Finally, the department requires 21 credits at the 600 level or higher and will not count any pass/fail credits towards the degree.

Course Descriptions

MIE 532 – Network Optimization

Introduction to use of network optimization in IE/OR. Algorithm design and analysis, including: shortest path problems, minimum spanning trees, matching, optimal assignment, maximum flow, the traveling salesman problem, the Chinese postman problem, others. Numerous engineering applications stressed throughout. Prerequisite: M&I-ENG 379 or equivalent.

MIE 564/664 – Engineering Leadership and Entrepreneurship

Learn vital leadership, management, and entrepreneurial skills as you guide your own startup idea through a real-life simulation that will take you from pitching your idea to running a ~100-person engineering organization. You will face the ups and downs of defining your product, scheduling, hiring, growing an organization, delivering difficult messages, and seeing your company grow, providing you with skills that you will be able to tap throughout your career as an engineering leader.

MIE 565 - Operations Research in Healthcare

This course will cover operations research and systems engineering methods and their applications in healthcare delivery and medical decision making. The use of these methods for healthcare has recently become an active and growing area of research in diverse contexts such as organ transplant decisions, evaluation of cost effectiveness of preventive screening, scheduling of healthcare services, patient access management, and the coordination of resources for elective and emergency services. The methods introduced in class for modeling such contexts include linear and integer programming, stochastic optimization, Markov decision processes, and discrete event simulation. Policy implications will also be discussed.

The course will be delivered in lecture format. Students will work on a set of healthcare modeling projects during the semester.

MIE 573 – Engineering Windpower Systems

Engineering aspects of windpower systems including aerodynamic analysis, mechanical design, support structure design, wind field analysis, system concepts and analysis, and economics.

MIE 585 - Engineering Law & Ethics

Defines the nature of the law and legal system and considers its interaction with and impact on technical issues germane to engineers and scientists. Addresses ethical issues from the practice of engineering and science.

MIE 597AS - Analytics and Statistical Learning

This course will cover statistical methods now widely used in data analysis, learning and prediction such as regression and classification techniques, feature selection, decision trees, and unsupervised learning methods such as clustering and principal components analysis. The emphasis will be on applying the statistical methods to data sets and understanding the optimization theory that drives these methods.

MIE 645 - Project Budgeting and Finance for Engineers

This course provides an overview of the fundamental concepts of basic accounting and finance, focusing on their application to managing engineering projects and organizations. Key topics covered include basic accounting terminology and methods, financial statements and how to interpret them, sources of finance available to businesses, engineering project accounting and financing, and personal and corporate financing basics.

MIE 646 – Fundamentals of Systems Engineering

This course offers an examination of the principles of systems engineering (SE) and their application within engineering management contexts. Students will be introduced to the vocabulary and the core concepts and techniques (tools) of SE. Of particular focus is exploring how systems thinking, as a perspective, offers a valuable capability for holistically understanding and dealing with engineering management problems and challenges.

MIE 651 – Advanced Production Planning

Quantitative approach to modeling and analysis of inventory and production systems, aggregate planning, scheduling, sequencing and forecasting. Activities are grounded on practical applications and build on extensive industry experience.

MIE 654/754 – Engineering Economic Decision Making

Integrated treatment of elements of engineering economy, economics, accounting, finance and operations research to provide a unified background for economics decision making.

MIE 657 – Human Factors Design

Design of engineering systems, machines, consumer goods, etc. which accommodate the characteristics of human users, operators and maintainers. Methods for obtaining data about human performance, preferences, tolerances, and group behavior needed in engineering design problems. Case methods used with comprehensive readings in the literature. Student projects relating to human factors in design.

MIE 664 - Engineering Leadership and Entrepreneurship

This course prepares engineers to be leaders in organizations of varying size by simulating the planning, decision-making, and communication needed to take an idea from germination to execution and delivery, scaling a team from a few people to a ~200 person organization. You will be the VP of Engineering of your own startup where you will pitch an idea, develop it, plan the resources needed to deliver it, hire a team, and manage the organization. You will learn the entrepreneurial skills needed to harness innovation and discover customer needs, and the leadership skills needed to hire and manage an organization as it grows. You will learn the skills for effective and appropriate communications as you progress through the leadership pipeline. The MIE 664 course offering covers the same material with more depth from additional assignments and presentations. These are available as extra credit for MIE 564 students.

MIE 670 – Technical Project Management

This course provides an overview of the fundamental concepts of managing engineering and technical projects.

MIE 686 – Multiple Criteria Decision Making & Decision Analysis

Decision problems involving the choice between alternatives when uncertainty is present. Emphasis on practical applications of this method, rather than on the more abstract theory. Topics include the structure of a decision analysis problem, the assessment of the decision-maker’s value structure.

MIE 697U – Strategy-Driven Engineering Innovation

Strategy-driven Engineering Innovation is designed to be highly integrative in that students use knowledge and tools from all functional areas of business (strategy, marketing, management) including engineering precepts to develop a holistic perspective of an organization in order to understand and resolve major issues that confront firms. The course emphasizes strategic management content and focuses on technical factors that influence the competitive behavior and performance of business organizations. Upon successful completion of this course, students are able to describe, analyze, explain, optimize, and apply strategic concepts and marketing tactics to any kind of whole business organization. More importantly, students will be prepared to think logically about actual strategic situations that confront managers. By the end of this course, students are able to take a high-level strategic perspective to the resolution of major business problems, scenarios, and issues, with the goal of improving organizational performance and output through structure and market innovation.

SCH-MGMT 597L - Negotiation Theory and Practice

The course Negotiation Theory and Practice examines negotiation fundamentals, including the two core strategies of competitive (win-lose) negotiation and integrative (win-win) negotiation. Course content focuses on negotiation preparation, strategy formulation, determination of goals and objectives, and processes for bringing about a successful settlement. The course will also explore psychological processes, power dynamics, communications at all stages of negotiation, ethical issues and the challenges of cross-cultural negotiations. The format of the course will be organized around a series of bargaining simulations and cases that are supported by readings, videos, and cases.

SCH-MGMT 602 – Business Intelligence and Analytics

This course provides an introduction to Business Intelligence, including the processes, methodologies, infrastructure, and current practices used to transform business data into useful information and support business decision-making. Business Intelligence requires foundation knowledge in data storage and retrieval, thus this course will review logical data models for both database management systems and data warehouses. Students will learn to extract and manipulate data from these systems and assess security-related issues. Data mining, visualization, and statistical analysis along with reporting options such as management dashboards and balanced scorecards will be covered.

SCH-MGMT 632 – Strategic Information Management

Provides an overview of different perspectives and approaches to leadership practice and related organizational behavior topics. Relying on a participative multi-learning approach, the course goes beyond traditional leadership practices to examine empowering leadership approaches for addressing contemporary organizational behavior challenges such as leading teams. The overall objective is to increase students’ understanding of and ability to apply contemporary leadership and organizational behavior knowledge in work situations.

SCH-MGMT 633 – Financial and Managerial Accounting

An overview of the concepts and language of financial and managerial accounting that covers how accounting information can be used as an effective tool for communication, monitoring, and resource allocation. Topics include the principles and methodologies underlying financial statements and the inherent limitations of that information. Additional topics include cost behavior, cost analysis and tools used to motivate and coordinate business activities.

SCH-MGMT 640 – Corporate Finance

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the area of corporate finance and investments. Students will learn about the basic concerns and responsibilities of financial managers, and gain an appreciation of the methods of analysis employed by them. Students will learn both the theory and practice of corporate finance and investments.

SCH-MGMT 650 – Business Data Analysis and Statistical Methods

This course provides an overview of statistical analysis and inference. The language and methods of statistics are used throughout the MBA curriculum, both in the classroom and in assigned readings. In addition, the language and methods of statistical analysis have permeated much of academic and professional writing as well as media reporting, both inside and beyond the business community. The goal is to present a broad introduction to statistical thinking, concepts, methods, and vocabulary. The course has an emphasis on business applications.

SCH-MGMT 670 – Operations Management

The goal of this course is to teach leaders what they need to know in order to build high-performance operations with world-class processes of innovation and continuous improvement. We cover the most current methodologies and tools, together with the most important soft skills required, to create efficient and responsive operations that deliver the highest quality services and products.

SCH-MGMT 680 – Leadership and Organizational Behavior

SCH-MGMT 697CA – Supply Chain Analytics

Supply chain constitutes a core competency, spanning most business functions required for the delivery of products and services to consumers. Advances in information technology and analytics facilitate continued improvement in supply chain infrastructure and operations efficiency. This course will introduce fundamental concepts in supply chain management, IT-enabled supply chain operations, procurement management, production planning, inventory management, and logistics and transportation. The course involves the use of Excel to support decision making, the study of selected business case studies, and the use of a team-based supply chain simulation game.

SCH-MGMT 783 – Business Law

Examines and evaluates legal problems as they relate to the business environment. Course will deal with areas of law including contracts, agency, ethics, bankruptcy, business organization and other areas of commercial law.

MS Engineering Management (MSEM)

Master of Science in Engineering Management

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