COURSE CURRICULUM

The Operations Management major at The University of Alabama is a focused business program designed around how organizations plan, control, and improve their day-to-day operations, and it requires about 36–39 total credit hours in the major area plus a required second major or approved minor, which means students build both specialized OM skills and broader business or interdisciplinary knowledge; the core major courses include Intro to Management Science (OM 310), Production Planning and Control (OM 321), Statistical Quality Control (OM 375), and either Computer Simulation (OM 420) or Business Analytics for Operations (OM 421), along with Production Scheduling Problems (OM 422) and Inventory Management (OM 423), which together train students in data-driven decision-making, optimization, forecasting, and efficiency improvement across business systems, while the ancillary course OM 305 (Information Technology for OM) strengthens students’ ability to use digital tools and systems for operational analysis, and beyond coursework, students must complete a second major or approved minor (15–18 hours), reinforcing the program’s emphasis on flexibility and business breadth, but admission is competitive since students must first qualify for upper-division standing in the business college and may also petition if their GPA meets recent performance standards (such as a 2.5 GPA over the last 30 credit hours), and once admitted, academic standards remain strict because all OM courses require a minimum grade of C- and repeated failure can restrict progression, with priority enrollment given to students progressing normally rather than repeating courses, and only declared majors are allowed into advanced classes like simulation, scheduling, and inventory systems, reflecting the program’s intent to prepare students for analytical and managerial roles in areas like supply chain coordination, logistics, manufacturing systems, and business process optimization, where graduates often move into roles that involve improving efficiency, reducing costs, and managing complex operational systems in both industrial and service-based organizations.