Module 4: Optimization and scheduling

Module 4: Optimization and scheduling#

Theme#

Optimization and scheduling

Essential Question#

How can models improve resource allocation?

Module Components#

  • Book prose: conceptual framing, domain scenario, methods, and failure modes

  • Assignment: evidence-backed production of a specific artifact

  • Slides: presentation sequence for seminar or lecture delivery

  • Narration: spoken version of the slide flow

  • Rubric: criteria for evaluating the module artifact

  • Notebook: executable lab aligned with the module theme using synthetic process-event records with cycle time, exception flags, queue age, and rework indicators

Module Artifact#

automation readiness memo with workflow map, exception policy, control points, and ROI estimate focused on optimization and scheduling: Formulate a scheduling or routing problem.

Professional Setting#

Students work as if advising an operations team deciding whether to automate part of a high-volume administrative workflow. Their work must be intelligible to process owner, operations analyst, frontline staff lead, and risk/control reviewer.

Use This Module in Order#

  1. Read the learning chapter.

  2. Review the slide deck with the matching narration.

  3. In Populi, open the private student-repository link for this course and enter modules/module-4.

  4. Clone the repository once or open its Codespace/Colab copy; run lab.ipynb and complete exercise.ipynb there.

  5. Self-check with the rubric, commit and push the work, then submit exactly what Populi requests.