The department focuses its teaching and research activities on the application of computer and related technologies to business problems. The department has a staff of twenty-five full-time academics, several research support staff, a technical officer and three administrative staff.
The department offers the Bachelor of Business Systems, the Bachelor of Business Systems with honours, the Bachelor of Commerce/Bachelor of Business Systems, the Bachelor of Business Systems/Bachelor of Laws, the Graduate Diploma in Business Systems and the Master of Business Systems (by coursework or research) and a PhD program.
The Bachelor of Business Systems came into existence at the request of the Business Council of Australia and the Commonwealth Government. This degree educates people in computing and management, with graduates readily able to apply their skills to the world of business. The course is designed to train the future senior management of Australian and overseas business, by combining practical computing ability with an awareness of and skill in general management roles such as finance, accounting, operations management and operations research. The department currently has the equivalent of almost 500 full-time students, and virtually 100 per cent graduate employment.
The aims of the postgraduate teaching are similar, but the teaching load and options available reflect the maturity and needs of postgraduate students.
A key feature of the undergraduate course is the link with industry. A large number of Australia's most significant organisations sponsor the degree, support students with scholarships, and provide industry-based learning for students as part of their studies.
The department is actively involved in research. In line with the department's aims, this research concentrates on the enhancement of computing and other technologies and their direct application to business problems. The main areas of research activity are project management, operations management, accounting, financial and strategic systems, advanced trading and marketing systems, multimedia for business, quality and reliability analysis, Chinese language and multilingual computing, timetabling and scheduling and applications of evolutionary computing to business. The department's research degrees are the Master of Business Systems and PhD.
Project management
Project compression; human resource scheduling; resource-constrained project scheduling; project evaluation and analytic hierarchy process; application of evolutionary computing to scheduling; automatic graph scheduling; use of simulated annealing.
Distributed operations scheduling; visual interactive operations scheduling; lean production; computer-aided production management; plant layout using genetic algorithms.
Financial modelling; option pricing models; financial index forecasting systems; financial and strategic planning; shareholder value analysis; corporate budgeting models; applications of management science and operations research to finance; statistical business modelling.
Electronic commerce, electronic data interchange; automatic identification; bar coding, electronic funds transfer; data encryption; EDI-compatible business software; electronic marketing on networks; supply and distribution chain improvements.
Development and use of state-of-the-art tools; project management of multimedia development; Lip Sync; creation of multimedia applications for business.
Quality management; quality and reliability software; statistical tools in quality and reliability; software metrics; quality information systems; reliability and maintenance systems.
Software development; information retrieval; development of special tools; applications to Chinese business systems; software internationalisation; fuzzy logic applications.
Resource allocation; programmed algorithms; constraint handling; dynamic scheduling.
Marketplace competition; game theory; genetic algorithms; human resource planning
Further information on the department may be found in the following publications:
Business systems is concerned with the solution of problems that arise in the day-to-day management of all types of enterprises. The solutions to the problems involve the use of a combination of computer, analytical and manual systems. The systems can range from the operational activities of transaction processing in accounting systems, through tactical decisions in logistics to decision support and executive information systems for strategic decisions.
Corporate functions emphasised include accounting information systems, manufacturing systems, decision analysis and project management. The necessary computing skills needed to implement solutions in these fields are integral to the course. These include programming, systems analysis, database systems, data communications.
Students completing this course will understand:
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