Introduction to operations Management

Operations management is an area of business that is concerned with the production of goods and services, and involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient and effective. It is the management of resources, the distribution of goods and services to customers, and the analysis of queue systems.

The main three major functional areas of organizations are finance, marketing, and operations. Finance is responsible for securing financial resources at favorable prices and allocating those resources throughout the organization, as well as budgeting, analyzing investment proposals, and providing funds for operations. Marketing is responsible for assessing consumer wants and needs, and selling and promoting the organization’s goods or services. Operation is responsible for producing the goods or providing the services offered by the organization.

Manufacturing and service organizations differ chiefly because manufacturing is goods-oriented and service is act oriented. The differ involve in the following: Degree of customer contact, uniformity of input, labor content of jobs, uniformly of output, measurement of productivity, production and delivery, quality assurance, amount of inventory, evaluation of wok, and ability to patent design.

Operations management people are involved in product and service design, process selection, selection and management of technology, design of work systems, location planning, facilities planning, forecasting, capacity planning, scheduling, managing inventories, assuring quality, motivating employees, and quality improvement of the organization’s products or services.

The operations manager is the key figure in the system: he or she has the ultimate responsibility for the creation of goods or provision of services. The kinds of jobs that operations managers oversee very tremendously from organization to organization largely because of the different products or services involved. The operation manager is more involved is day-to-day operating decisions than with decisions relating to system design.

System design involves decisions that relate o system capacity, the geographic location of facilities, and arrangement of departments and placement of equipment within physical structures, product and service planning, and acquisition of equipment. These decisions usually, but not always, require long-term commitments. Moreover, they are typically strategic decisions. System operation involves management of personnel, inventory planning and control, scheduling, project management, and quality assurance. These are generally tactical and operational decisions. System design essentially determines many of the parameters of system operation. E.g. (Costs, space, capacities, and quality)

Operations management professionals make a number of key decisions that affect the entire organizations. These include the following: What: what resources will be needed, and in what amount? When: when will each resource be needed? Where: where the work will be done? How: how will the product or service be designed? Who: who will do the work?

The historical evolution of operations management: the industrial revolution; in the earliest days of manufacturing, goods were produced using craft production. Craft production had major shortcomings. Because products were made by skilled craftsmen who custom fitted parts, production was slow and costly. A major change occurred, the development of standards gauging systems. This greatly reduced the need for custom-made goods .Despite the major changes that were taking place, management theory and practice had not progressed much from early days. What was needed was an enlightened and more systematic approach to management. Whereas the scientific management movement heavily emphasized the technical aspects of work design, the human relations movement emphasized the importance of the human element in ob design. Decisions models and management science; after the world war II, efforts to develop and refine quantitative tools for decision making continued, resulting in decision models for forecasting, inventory management, project management, and other areas of operations management. The influence of Japanese manufacturers, a number of Japanese manufactures developed or refined management practices that increased the productivity of their operations and quality of their products.

Major trends in business: the internet, e-commerce is consumer-to-business transactions. , and e-business is using the internet to transact business. Management of technology is the application of scientific discoveries to the development and improvement of goods and services. Globalization, management of supply chains is a sequence of activities and organizations involved in producing and delivering a good or service, outsourcing is obtaining a product or service from outside organization. Agility is the ability of an organization to respond quickly to demands or opportunities, ethical behavior, operations strategy, working with fewer resources, revenue management, process analysis and improvement, increased regulation, and lean production.