Practice Summary: Managing Capacity at the University of Mary Washington’s College of Business

The University of Mary Washington’s College of Business (COB) has experienced a period of sustained growth in demand for its programs over the past eight years. To properly manage growth as the organization approaches capacity, this has necessitated both an optimal utilization of its faculty resources across its programs and an understanding of key bottlenecks and resource imbalances. This was addressed by modeling the problem as a multiobjective max-flow system with pooled resources. A spreadsheet model was developed to determine the optimal allocation of resources across the programs and allow interactive exploration of different scenarios based on different assumptions. The tool also allowed the COB to precisely identify and quantify bottlenecks and resource excesses. This work has provided critical inputs necessary for future course planning and hiring strategies.