OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: Introduction to operations management

PRODUCTION OF GOODS VERSUS DELIVERY OF SERVICES

•Production of goods results in a tangible output while delivery of services generally implies an act.
•Manufacturing and service are often different in terms of what is done BUT quite similar in terms of how is done.
•Manufacturing and service organizations differ chiefly because manufacturing is goods-oriented and service is act-
oriented.

The differences between manufacturing and service organization involves the following:
1. Degree of customer contact. 6. Production and delivery
2. Uniformity of input. 7. Quality assurance
3. Labor content of jobs. 8. Amount of inventory
4. Uniformity of output. 9. Evaluation of work
5. Measurement of productivity. 10. Ability to patent design

THE SCOPE OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

• Operations management people involved in product and service design, process selections, selection in
management of technology, design of work systems, location planning, facilities planning, and quality improvement
of organization’s product or services.
• The operations function includes many interrelated activities, such as forecasting, capacity planning, scheduling,
managing inventories, assuring quality, motivating employees, deciding where to locate facilities and more.
• The primary function of an operations manager is to guide the system by decision making. Certain decisions affect
the design of the system and other affect the operation of the system.
• System design involves decisions that relate to system capacity, the geographic location of facilities, arrangement of
departments, and placement of equipment within physical structures, product and service planning, and acquisition
of equipment.
• System operation involves management of personal inventory planning and control scheduling project management
and quality assurance.

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING

Approaches to decision making:
• Models - an obstruction of reality, a simplified representation of something. Models are sometimes classified as
physical, schematic, or mathematical.
1. Physical models looks like their real-life counterparts.
2. Schematic models are more abstract than their physical counterparts. Examples are graphs and charts.
3. Mathematical models are the most abstract. They do not look at all like their real-life counterparts. Easiest
to manipulate.
• Quantitative approaches - an attempt to obtain mathematical optimal solutions to managerial problems.
• Performance metrics – these are many metrics in use including those related to profits, cost, quality, productivity,
assets, inventory, schedules, and forecast accuracy.
• Analysis of trade-offs - A way to quantify consumer's values associated with different product attributes using
multivariate techniques.
• Systems approach – a system can be defined as a set of interrelated parts that must work together and may
composed of subsystems which in turn are composed of lower subsystems. This approach is essential whenever
something is being designed, redesigned, implemented, improved or otherwise changed.
• Establishing priorities – In virtually every situation, managers discover that certain factors are more important than
others. Recognizing this enables the managers to direct their efforts to where they will do the most good and to avoid
wasting time on other less important factors.
• Ethics – contemporary organizational standards, principles, sets of values and norms that govern the actions and
behavior of an individual in the business organization.
• Environmental concerns – withdrawing concern on global environmental changes, stricter regulations especially in
developed nations are being imposed, thus affecting the way business are operating.

OPERATIONS INTERFACE S WITH THE NUMBER OF SUPPORTING FUNCTIONS

• Legal department – must be consulted on contracts with employees, customer, suppliers, and transporter as well as
on liability and environmental issues.
• Accounting – supplies information to management on cost of labor materials and overhead and may provide
reports.
• Management Information Systems (MIS) – concerned with oh providing management with the information it needs
to effectively manage.
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: Introduction to operations management

• Personnel or human resources department – concern with sweet recruitment and training of personnel.
• Public relations – responsibility for building and maintaining a positive public image of the organization.

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
• There are many career opportunities in the operations management field.
• examples are operations manager, production analyst, production manager, industrial engineer, time study analyst,
inventory manager, purchasing manager, schedule coordinator, distribution manager, supply chain manager, quality
analyst and quality manager.

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
• During 1770s in England goods were produced in small shops by Craftsman and their apprentices.
• only simple tools were available.
• In the earliest days of mine affection good syrup reduce using craft production: highly skilled workers using simple,
flexible tools produced goods according to customer specifications.
• Graph reduction had major shortcomings: production is slow and costly, replacement also had to be custom-made,
Production costs did not decrease as volume increase, there were no economies.
SYNTHETIC MANAGEMENT ERA
• Frederick Winslow Taylor the father of scientific management, Bass on observation, measurement, analysis and
improvement of work methods, and economic incentives.
• he started work methods in great detail to identify the best method for doing each job
• Taylor emphasized maximizing output.
• Contributions by Henry Ford such as mass production and division of labor, and by Eli Whitney’s interchangeable
parts.
THE HUMAN RELATIONS MOVEMENT
• Emphasized importance of the human element in job design.
DECISION MODELS AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• During the world war 2 the word generated tremendous pressures on manufacturing outfits and specialist from
many discipline combined effort to develop and refund quantitative tools for decision-making continued resulting in
decision models for forecasting in Ventura management project management and other areas of operation
management.
• During the 1960s and 1970s management science techniques where highly regarded; in the 1980s they lost some
favor however the white Fred use a personal computers and user-friendly software in the workplace contributed to
our surgeons in the popularity of this techniques.
THE INFLUENCE OF JAPANESE MANUFACTURERS
• They’re contribution to emphasis on manufacturing strategy and emphasis on quality, flexibility, time-based
competition, and lean production.
• Their approaches emphasized quality and continual improvement, record teams and empowerment, send achieving
customer satisfaction.

MAJOR TRENDS IN BUSINESS

• The internet offer is great potential for business organization.
• electronic business or e business involves the use of internet transact business.
• e-commerce consumer business transaction searches buying online are requesting information.
• Technology refers to the application of scientific discoveries to David development and improvement of goods and
services.
• High technology reference to the most advanced and develop machines and methods.
• Production service technology refers to the discovery and development of new products and services.
• Process technology refers to methods, procedures and equipment used to produce goods and provide services.
• information technology refers to the science and use of computers and other electronic equipment to store, process,
and send information.
• supply chain is the sequence of organization that are involved in producing and delivering a product or service.