Elena Katok

Current UTD Courses


OPRE 6371: Purchasing, Sourcing and Contract Management (SCM MS and MBA) offered in residence in Fall and on-line in Spring.

Costs associated with purchasing often account for as much as 80% of the final product cost. This means that even a small decrease in these costs can have a significant impact on the bottom line. Procurement involves a constant tension between decreasing costs and establishing cooperative relationships. Throughout this course we will be grappling with these two opposing forces. We will be examining competitive and cooperative situations in a variety of supply chain settings in which performance depends on the interactions between a variety of decision makers, including customers, suppliers, competitors, and government regulators.


OPRE 7309: Behavioral Operations Management (Ph.D.) offered in Spring on alternate years, starting Spring 2017.

This course covers a research topics in behavioral operations management and provides an overview of the area for Ph.D. students.  Some of the topics covered include introduction to using laboratory experiments in operations, individual decisions, supply chain contracts, and behavioral marked design.  The main goal of the course is to expose Ph.D. students to behavioral research and gain deeper understanding of the limitations of the standard operations management paradigm.  The course will use a seminar format.  Each session there will be assigned readings that we will discuss and critique.  The main deliverable in the course will be a proposal for a laboratory study, including hypotheses, treatments and factors.  Those who wish to pursue this research further will have an opportunity to conduct their studies with human subjects.


OPRE/MECO 6355: Deal Making Strategies (MS and MBA) offered in Spring on alternate years, starting Spring 2016

This course uses experiential hands-on learning to develop students' skills in effectively managing competitive and collaborative business situations.    Students will learn: (1) Behavioral principles for effective bargaining. (2) The principles for designing, conducting, and participating in procurement auctions. (3) Methods for increasing cooperation and trust in competitive and collaborative settings. (4) Behavioral principles for designing trading.
Each topic in the course will be centered around a set of hands-on business simulations and case studies, in which students will take on the role of market participants working through a business problem.


Case Studies

These cases are freely available for use.  If you would like to use any of these cases, email me and let me know.  I will send you a teaching note and any other materials I have.

eBay sniping is a case study that is conducted on eBay and is used to illustrate ideas about auctions.

Winter Gear is a case about negotiating contracts in supply chain setting. There are two other documents that contain private information, so email me if you would like to use it, and I will send you those materials.  Requires understanding of the Newsvendor problem.

Sears Logistics is based on: Ledyard, Olson, Porter, Swanson and Troma, The First Use of a Combined-Value Auction for Transportation Services, Interfaces 32:5, 2002, pp. 4-12.

Spectrum is a case based on the FCC spectrum license trading.

General Hospital. uses linear programming to schedule nurses.


Software for Classroom Games

UTD Gaming Platform Powered by SoPHIE (admin logon available for UTD LBOE users): I use this platform to develop and deploy interactive simulations and games I use in my classes.  Currently the library of games that are available include Procurement Auctions, Negotiation, CPFR game and F-100 Simulation that I use in the OPRE 6371 class.

SoPHIE Labs
SoPHIE Documentation
SoPHIE Classroom Log-in URL for Simulation participants (you will need a code to log in)
SoPHIE Classroom Log-in URL for Instructors (you will need login credentials to log in)