The core operations course is intended to enable managers in any area to leverage their individual performances by understanding operations and how operations integrate with other business functions to influence a firm’s performance. Throughout the course, students focus on how to manage operations for superior firm performance. Achieving operational excellence requires a mindset of integration with marketing and the other functions of the firm so that improvement efforts throughout the firm reinforce each other, and the functions work together to create and enhance value for customers. Having learned how operational effectiveness can be a powerful contributor to successful firm performance, students spend the remaining classes learning how to analyze and design processes.