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Operations

IBM Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems

Professor of Operations

Portrait of Sunil Chopra, Faculty at the Kellogg School of Management

Sunil Chopra is the IBM Distinguished Professor of Operations Management. He was also Interim Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University from 2009-2010. From 2006 – 2009, he served as Senior Associate Dean: Curriculum and Teaching. He became a faculty member of the school in 1989. Previously he was an Assistant Professor at the Stern School of Business Administration at New York University. He has a PhD in Operations Research from SUNY Stony Brook.

Professor Chopra’s research and teaching interests are in Operations Management, Logistics and Distribution Management, design of communication networks and design of distribution networks. He has co-authored the books Managing Business Process Flows and Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation. Both books are published by Prentice Hall and are used at several of the top business schools to teach Operations Management and Supply Chain Management respectively. The Supply Chain Management book was awarded the best book of the year for 2002 by the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE). Professor Chopra has won several teaching awards at Kellogg.

He has been Departmental Editor for the journals Management Science and an Associate Editor for the Decision Sciences Journal, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Operations Research. His recent research has focused on risk management in supply chains. He has also studied distribution systems in a variety of companies trying to identify market, manufacturing, and product characteristics that drive the structure of a supply chain.

He has consulted for a variety of firms.

About Sunil
Research interests
  • Operations management
  • network design
  • combinational optimization
Teaching interests
  • Operations management
  • network design
  • combinational optimization
  • PhD, 1986, Operations Research, State University of New York, Stony Brook
    MS, 1984, Operations Research, State University of New York, Stony Brook
    BT, 1981, Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi
  • IBM Distinguished Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems, Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 1995-present
    Interim Dean, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2009-2010
    Senior Associate Dean, Curriculum and Teaching, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2006-2009
    Chairman, Managerial Economics and Decision Science, Northwestern University, 2000-2002
    Director, Master of Management and Manufacturing program, Northwestern University, 1998-2006
    Associate Professor, Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 1992-1995
    Assistant Professor, Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, 1989-1992
    Assistant Professor, Leonard N. Stern School of Business Administration, New York University, 1986-1989
  • Saul Gass Expository Writing Award, INFORMS Annual Meeting
    Saul Gass Expository Writing Award, INFORMS Annual Meeting, 2019
    Winner Case Category - Indian Management issues and Opportunities, EFMD Case writing competition, 2015
    A-List of Management Academics, Business Educators, 2011
    Executive MBA Program Outstanding Teaching Awards, Kellogg School of Management, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999
    Kellogg Alumni Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg School of Management, 2005
    Selected IIE Book of the Year for Supply Chain Management, IIE, 2002
  • Department Editor, Management Science, 2003-2005
    Associate Editor, Management Science, 2000-2002
    Associate Editor, Operations Research, 1997-1999

Strategic Decisions in Operations (OPNSX-454-0)

This course builds on the core operations management class with an emphasis on strategic level decisions. It emphasizes the long-term, "big" decisions firms face in structuring their operations. Topics covered range from evaluating flexible technologies to designing supply chains.