UB - University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Graduate Courses

This section provides brief descriptions of many of the graduate courses recently offered by the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. Students are also strongly encouraged to take advantage of the broad range of courses offered by other departments such as statistics, mathematics, computer science, management, psychology, physiology, and other fields of engineering.

Have you ever looked at the university's class schedule listings and wondered about the difference between "Research" and "Supervised Research," or failed to find "MS Thesis Guidance"? The following table lists the official course numbers and names associated with various common registration needs. Notice that the numbers sometimes change from fall to spring. This form must be submitted prior to taking any informal course.

Common Name	Fall	Spring	Official Name
Department Seminar	IE 691	IE 691	Research
Independent Study (Masters)	IE 501	IE 502	Individual Problems
Independent Study (Ph.D.)	IE 601	IE 602	Individual Problems
M.S. Thesis	IE 559	IE 560	M.S. Research Guidance
M.Eng. Project	IE 591	IE 592	M.Eng. Project
Ph.D. Dissertation Research	IE 659	IE 660	Dissertation

Course Descriptions

Core courses for each of the programs are offered annually. Other courses may or may not be offered on an annual basis. The courses are described below.

• EAS 521 Principles of Engineering Management I
  This course covers the basic service management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, as applied to project, team, knowledge, group/department and global settings. Discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of engineers as managers, and the engineering management challenges in the global economy will also be featured. Emphasis is placed on the integration of engineering technologies and management. Students will master the basic functions in engineering management, the roles and perspectives of engineering managers, and selected skills required to become effective engineering managers in the new millennium.
  Home Page: http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Courses/eas521
• EAS 522 Principles of Engineering Management II:
  This course covers the fundamentals of cost accounting, financial accounting, financial management, and marketing management in order to prepare service managers to meet future challenges in the marketplace. Business cases are used to discuss technologies for promoting service innovations, globalization of both service industries and labor markets, and the impact of these emerging market forces on service enterprises and managerial functions in the new millennium. Because of its recognized importance, this course is offered by the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. It may be taken by students as an acceptable elective toward their master's degrees in any engineering disciplines. For students pursuing a master's degree of engineering in engineering management with UB's industrial engineering department, this is a required core course.
  Home Page: http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Courses/eas521
• EAS 523 Capstone Project in Service Systems Engineering
  Students will be involved with the planning, benchmarking, and implementation of engineering strategies central to the application of specific engineering principles and methodologies in real-world service settings. The focus of a capstone SSE project is on the innovative application of engineering knowledge of diversified sources to add value. Students will prepare a written report and present results in an open seminar.
• EAS 580 Technical Communications for Engineers
  This course introduces students to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential for professional engineers to effectively communicate. The course focuses on three goals: 1) to acquaint students with the standards, conventions, and techniques used to manage technical information within a collaborative workplace; 2) to offer opportunities to apply, practice, and refine communication skills; and 3) to inculcate a process of iterative review, evaluation, and revision in oral, written, and graphical communication that will demonstrate how to meet to professional standards. Projects and assignments are constructed to ensure that students learn the craft of technical communication through concentrating on the steps of the writing/project development process, with an emphasis on the importance of constant revision.
• EAS 590 Case Studies in Engineering Management
  This capstone course should be taken in the last year of the student’s program. A case-oriented course which examines in detail the role of the engineering manager as strategic planner and policymaker. Five or six case studies will be presented for discussion, analysis and report. The use and efficacy of engineering management methods will be evaluated for each case.
• IE 500 Topics in Human-Machine Systems
  The emphasis in this course is on issues concerning modeling and aiding human decision-making and control in human-computer interactive environments. Various topics are covered that directly or indirectly address the objective of designing an effective joint human-computer decision and control system. Examples of topics include allocation of functions between human and computer, computer aiding, and applications of fuzzy sets and knowledge-based systems.
• IE 501/502 Individual Problems (for M.S./M.Eng. students)
• IE 504 Facilities Design
  Facilities Design teaches the analytical tools necessary to effectively tackle the problem of designing the layout of a productive facility. Both non-quantitative and quantitative, computer-based approaches are detailed. The course also discusses location problems, i.e., analytical methods to determine optimal locations of machines/workcenters in a manufacturing facility. Also, the course discusses warehouse storage policies, i.e., analytical methods for effective management of warehouse storage space. Finally, there is discussion of automated guided vehicles and their utility in a modern flexible manufacturing system.
• IE 505 Production Planning and Control
  This course covers the production management related problems in manufacturing systems. It blends quantitative and qualitative material, theoretical and practical perspectives, and thus, bears relevance for academic as well as industrial pursuits. The introduction consists of the production and operations management strategy. The topics covered include simple forecasting methods, workforce planning, inventory control, production planning, materials requirements planning, operations scheduling, and project management. Recent developments in production management such as just-in-time (JIT) inventory systems, and flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) are also discussed.
• IE 506 Computer Integrated Manufacturing
  Design and analysis of computer integrated manufacturing systems of discrete part production. Focus on advanced topics in computer-based manufacturing systems, automation, and emerging trends. Laboratory assignments included.
  
• IE 507 Design and Analysis of Experiments
  This course introduces the student to the fundamental principles of planning, designing, and analyzing statistical experiments. (This course is, at times, replaced by Statistics 526.)
• IE 508 Quality Assurance
  Topics in statistical quality control systems. Principles involved in designing statistical quality control systems and acceptance sampling plans. Design and analysis of a wide variety of statistical control systems. Design of quality control systems that achieve their specified aims despite inspector error.
• IE 509 Six Sigma Quality
  This course describes a set of management principles and methods for dramatically improving product/services quality and, ultimately, the productivity of the organization. The course is based on four principles: 1) business organizations should satisfy the requirements of internal and external customers; 2) employees must be empowered to solve problems; 3) continuous process improvement is essential to improving quality and productivity of the organization; and 4) management excellence is achieved by creating a vision of the corporate future and implementing this vision through departmental and employee involvement at all levels. Learning in the course is founded on team participation.
• IE 512 Decision Analysis
  This is a first course in decision analysis that extends the domain of decision making problems from those considered in traditional statistical hypothesis testing scenarios. The course consists of three major sections: 1) modeling decisions, where the emphasis is on structuring decision problems using techniques such as influence diagrams and decision trees; 2) modeling uncertainty, which covers subjective probability assessment, the use of classical probability models, Bayesian analysis, and value of information; and 3) modeling preferences, which introduces the concepts of risk preference, expected utility, and multi-attribute value and utility models.
• IE 530 Human Factors Fundamentals
  Human Factors is presented from an engineering viewpoint as a discipline for analysis and design of the interactions between people and systems. The nature of the interaction varies from biomechanics and physiology of physical tasks, through cognitive encounters with equipment interfaces to socio-technical interactions of multi-person teams. Two complementary design techniques are used: top-down systems design and bottom-up participative design. Models of the human operator of complex systems are used throughout to provide a consistent viewpoint of the use of human factors data in the design process. This course has been designed as a first course in the Human Factors graduate program to enable students from widely varying backgrounds to understand a common set of principles as they proceed to more specialized courses. The course is also valuable to those from other disciplines who need to utilize Human Factors concepts and data in their own work.
• IE 531 Human Factors Research Methodology
  The purpose of this course is to allow students to gain familiarity with a broad range of methods appropriate for studying humans, tasks, environments, and their interaction; to be able to formulate research hypotheses, and to understand the relationship between research hypotheses and appropriate methods for testing the hypotheses. Students will read journal papers demonstrating a variety of research methods, as well as learn how to prepare a research proposal.
• IE 532 Human Information Processing
  Introduction to basic behavioral and psychological factors, such as sensory, perceptual, learning, and cognitive processes. Emphasis is placed upon the application of knowledge about these factors to the design and development of human-machine systems.
• IE 533 Socio-Technical Systems
  This course examines the impact of automation and computer technologies on organizational and job design. The intent is to demonstrate how automation changes processes and work within organizations, and the implications for organizational efficiency and quality of working life. Topics include: communication processes, decision-making, job design, job satisfaction, motivation, and acceptance of innovation.
• IE 535 Human-Computer Interaction
  The primary objective of the course is to introduce graduate- and senior-level undergraduate students to the principles and methods underlying human-computer interaction and the design of effective computer interfaces. In contrast to the design of computer systems based primarily on technological constraints and capabilities, theories and methods in human-computer interaction emphasize the design of computer systems which are designed to support user capabilities and task requirements. This course will provide students the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge in the area of human factors, as well as the opportunity to apply principles of user- and use-centered design to a real world design problem.
• IE 536 Physiological Foundations of Human Factors
  Introduction to the structure and functioning of the human body, including anthropometry, biomechanics, and physiology. Predictive models of human interaction with task factors such as posture and workload, and environmental factors such as temperature and humidity. Emphasis is on the applications and implications of physiological measures such as energy expenditures, heart rate, and E.M.G.
• IE 538 Human Factors Laboratory
  This course provides techniques for testing hypotheses and making numerical estimates based on data collected on human subjects. The lecturer content covers measurement strategies, issues of simulation fidelity, and laboratory vs. field experimentation. The laboratory and field content provides a series of tests of current issues in human factors practice from manufacturing, transportation, and office systems.
  C-requisites: IE 531, STA 526
• IE 541 Human Factors in Safety
  Theories of accident causation. Development of a systems approach for collecting and analyzing accident data. Fault tree analysis and THERP. Federal and state legislation. Organization and management of a safety program in a company. Prevention of common safety hazards. Design of warning signs, propaganda, and training.
• IE 551 Simulation and Stochastic Models
  Introduction to computer simulation. Topics include Monte Carlo simulation, event-oriented simulation, process-oriented simulation, continuous simulation, generating random numbers and variates, selecting input probability distributions, statistical analysis of simulation results, variance reduction techniques, design of simulation experiments, and some advanced topics in simulation modeling such as simulation metamodels, object-oriented simulation, and parallel discrete-event simulation. Prerequisites: basic statistics, some computer programming experience.
• IE 559/560 Thesis (for M.S. students)
• IE 561 Information Systems
  This course affords students the background and skills needed to design information systems typically found in manufacturing and industrial organizations. The focus will be on modeling business processes using structured methodologies, deriving data models that support the functional requirements, and implementation using the relational database approach. Topics covered in this course are: relational databases and SQL; functional architecture and IDEFO methodology; information architecture and entity relationship modeling; and database design and implementation using MS Access.
• IE 565 Service-Enabled Enterprises
  We will examine SOA as a means of service-enabling an enterprise. In particular we will investigate the SOA vision, strategy and road map; identify major business challenges that SOA resolves; work on planning, architecting, and implementing an SOA; identify opportunities for service-enabling; identify, analyze and design services; establish a services integration model within an organization; define SOA governance and behavior models for an organization; develop an organizational model for service-enabling; develop metrics for SOA and evaluate organizational return of investment (ROI).
  
• IE 563 Data Mining in Service Enterprises
  The course covers data warehousing and knowledge discovery processes that include data selection, cleaning, coding; different statistical, pattern recognition, and machine learning techniques; and reporting and visualization of generated structures as applied to service enterprises. This course will also provide an introduction to the concepts and techniques prevalent in the field of data mining. Computing projects, a term paper, and presentations are required.
• IE 572 Linear Programming
  Algebraic and geometric characterization of the linear programming problem. Adjacent extreme point methods, duality, postoptimality analysis, decomposition, and interior point methods.
• IE 573 Discrete Optimization
  Presentation of specific mathematical techniques used frequently in Operations Research. Topics include integer programming modeling, branch and bound, polyhedral description, graph theory, networks, and computational complexity.
• IE 575 Stochastic Methods
  This course teaches the fundamentals of applied probability theory. Topics include algebra of events; sample space representation of the model of an experiment (any non-deterministic process); random variables; derived probability distributions; discrete and continuous transforms and random incidence. The course also introduces elementary stochastic processes including Bernoulli and Poisson processes and general discrete-state Markov processes. This is followed by a discussion of some basic limit theorems and some common issues and techniques of both classical and Bayesian statistics.
• IE 576 Applied Stochastic Processes
  A continuation of IE 575. Topics include discrete-time and continuous-time Markov chains, Poisson processes and renewal theory, branching processes. Emphasis is placed on applications to operations research problems in areas such as queuing and inventory theory.
• IE 582 Robotic Systems
  Analysis of robots and robotic systems. Kinematics, coordinate transform, vision systems, off-line programming, and simulation of robotic systems. Laboratory assignments included.
• IE 586 Manufacturing Systems
  Study of different types of manufacturing systems, and the tools and techniques used in their analysis design and operation. Systems considered include Flow Line Systems, Assembly Systems, Cellular Manufacturing Systems, and Flexible Manufacturing Systems.
• IE 591/592 Project (for M.Eng. Students)
• IE 603 Location Theory
  This course is concerned with analyzing the problem of optimally locating one or more facilities. The approach is a purely analytical one, and the focus is on studying the vast academic literature in this field of Operations Research. Specific topics that are covered include the p-median, p-center, and stochastic queue median problems. Both network and planar location topologies are considered. Analytical tools are developed for these various problems and solution algorithms are detailed.
• IE 620 Agile Manufacturing
  Justification of the agile manufacturing paradigm. Issues and challenges in geographically distributed partnership-based product realization. The role of information technology and modeling in future integrated product and process design. This advanced course provides a core set of fundamental tools, example applications, and open research topics in agile manufacturing.
  Prerequisite: IE 506, Programming proficiency or consent of instructor.
  
• IE 631 Personnel Subsystem Development
  Fundamentals of systematic selection, placement, and criterion development procedures and their relation to efficient system staffing. Methods of job and skill analysis applied to selection and job training. Consideration of the principles of performance criteria development. Development of job training schemes.
• IE 632 Advanced Topics in Human Factors
  Recent offerings of this course have focused on cognitive engineering, applied work measurement methods, and musculoskeletal epidemiology.
• IE 640 Human Reliability Analysis and System Safety
  This course examines a variety of perspectives associated with assessing human error and human reliability. Some of the approaches to human reliability analysis that are covered include: THERP, SLIMMAUD, the application of classical engineering reliability methods, and simulation methods. The nuclear power industry serves as the primary application domain.
• IE 659/660 Dissertation
• IE 661 Scheduling Theory
  This course is concerned with analyzing the problem of optimally scheduling jobs on one or more machines in a production facility. The initial focus is on the simplistic single-machine case. These results are then extended to the multi-machine context, and later to a job shop situation where jobs are to be routed through the production facility. The approach is an analytical one, with the focus being on the development of a precise mathematical theory for studying such problems.
• IE 662 Queuing Theory
  Development and application of mathematical models for queuing systems. Topics include Poisson and Erlang systems, bulk and priority queues, queuing networks, and the optimal design and control of queuing systems. A prerequisite knowledge of stochastic processes is recommended.
• IE 663 Inventory Theory
  Development and application of mathematical models for inventory and production control. Topics include deterministic and stochastic demand for both time-stationary and time-varying (dynamic) demand, and multiechelon problems. The course also covers stochastic leadtimes and the relation of these models to queuing systems.
• IE 670 Topics in Operations Research
  In-depth analysis of selected topics in Operations Research. Course content will focus upon particular interests of the students and the instructor.
• IE 671 Nonlinear Programming
  Single and multivariate classical optimization and Kuhn-Tucker theory. Computational methods, including penalty function, barrier function, gradient, and cutting plane approaches.
• IE 674 Integer Programming
  Optimization problems in which some or all variables are restricted to be integers. Enumeration and relaxation methods, cutting planes for integer programs, polyhedra and complexity. Specific models like the traveling salesman, postman, set covering, set packing, set partitioning, and Steiner tree problems are considered.
• IE 675 Game Theory
  A development of the mathematical theory of conflict, cooperation competition, and coercion among economic decision-makers. Classical n-person game theory and its relationship to linear programming. Dynamic cooperative games, their applications to decentralized control systems and the analysis of the behavior of decision-makers in organizations.
  
• IE 677 Network Optimization
  Solutions to graph theory and optimization problems on directed and undirected graphs. Shortest path, maximum flow, minimum weight flows, and matching problems. Also, the traveling salesman and Chinese postman problems.
• IE 678 Urban Operations Research
  This is an applied Operations Research course, where the focus is on the utilization of the analytical tools that students have learned in other Operations Research courses to study problems of urban significance. The course starts off with a review of basic probabilistic concepts. The first topic covered is that of geometrical probability, a powerful tool to approach urban problems. Then a discussion on queuing theory is presented. This is followed by a discussion of spatial queues that are used in modeling urban emergency service systems. The next topic is on network problems that are useful in an urban context. The final topic is on simulation modeling as applied to urban problems. All topics are reinforced with real-world examples and in-depth homework assignments.
• IE 680 Topics in Production Systems
  This course will discuss topics in concurrent engineering, design methodologies, product life cycle design (“Green Design”) and environmentally conscious manufacturing. The class includes lectures and student research projects. The class will also include extensive discussion on research methodology.
• IE 681 E-Business and Supply Chain Management
  This course will cover the fundamentals of e-enterprise management including e-business and supply chain and culminate with leading-edge concepts and quantitative approaches. A system wide view is developed of the new economy which integrates manufacturer, supplier, and customer networks. The role of IT, resource management, optimization, and stochastic models will be discussed. Basic models for backend supply chain network design, inventory and risk management, and distributions strategies will be discussed, in the context of industrial software. Similarly, front end processes e-commerce and e-business models such as exchanges and auctions will be discussed, along with linkages to the backend. Reality is captured through cases and mini-projects with industry.
  Required Courses: IE 572, IE 575 or equivalent course or remedial preparation approved by instructor.
• IE 682 Advanced Engineering and Systems Design
  This Ph.D. level and research-oriented course will discuss advanced engineering and systems design theories and applications. Integrated product life cycle design, engineering and manufacturing systems design, information systems design, organization design and ergonomic design will be covered. Class format: lectures, student presentation, and research projects.
  Prerequisite(s): Graduate students in engineering or instructor approval.
• CSE 507 Services-Oriented Architectures and Web Services
  SOA is a design model for linking computation resources, data, and applications to perform services and deliver results to service consumers. Web service standard provides a platform-independent method for messaging-based interaction of applications. This course covers the basic concepts, technologies that support SOA, and the design/implementation of a SOA using web services. Topics covered include: loose coupling of systems, enterprise service bus, composition of complex services, workflow design, policies and service-level agreements, process engineering and system design, WSDL, publication and discovery, and service encapsulation.
• CSE 530 Computer Communications
  An introduction to communication networks for computer and telecommunication applications. Review of stochastic processes and introductory queuing theory. Local area networks (such as Ethernet, Token Ring, and FDDI), wide area networks (such as SNA, and Internet), ISDN, and SONET are considered. Focus is on the data link control, network and transport layers of the OSI protocol suite.