Operations Management

Operations are the key factor in any organization and hence organizations are born and emerged around out the world to provide these operational aspects to customers as their motto or vision states. The day-to-day creations and delivery of goods and services of a company are defined as Operations Management. Slack (2004) defines Operations Management as “the business function that organises, harmonizes and controls the resources needed to produce a company products and services”. Researching further on this definition, operations Management can be seen as a business function which enables organizations to effectively co-ordinate their delivery of products and services to the customers as an output. Hence Operations Management is the management of systems or processes that create goods and or provides services. As Hill (2000) clarifies that “The operations task concerns the transformation process that involves taking inputs and transforming them into outputs together with the various support roles closely associated with this basic task”. However Muhlemann (1992) critiques that “of all the managerial tasks the production/operations management function is the hardest to define since it incorporates so many diverse tasks that are interdependent. To divide it up, therefore, is to destroy it”. Arguably Schroeder (1985) clarifies Operation Management as a part of the organization that makes the goods and or delivers the services to the customers.

So where can Operations Management be found? It’s on every process that the day-to-day operations of goods and or services provide through organizations. It is in the things consumers buy. It is in the products that are produced. It is in the services we provide through organizations or social services. There are three sectors in which the products and or service are delivered is broken down in which the Primary Sector evolves around the land an sea and the Secondary Sector on Manufacturing or Production/Construction whilst the third being Tertiary Sector comprising of services.

The modern and rapidly changing business world needs emerging technologies and innovations, in which to compete with the global competition. For this purpose organizations that produce or “operations needs to be strategic and operations managers need to manage their resources strategically. So what are Strategic operations Management? Strategies are ideas to develop and achieve organizational goals. These strategies have a deep impact on what the organization does and how it does it. These strategies provide scope for decision making within the organization. Teece (1997); Eisenhardt & Martin (2000) defines strategies “concerned with developing capabilities within the firm’s operations that are superior to other competitors and that other competitors either cannot copy or will find it difficult to copy”. The strategy of an organization can either be long term, intermediate term or short term. Strategies are designed to reflect the mission, vision, goal and core competences of a particular organization. Arguably Das, (1991); Itami & Numagami, (1992) also backs this point. Operations managers need to formulate new strategies to cope with competition and in order to do this they must regulate strategies into and from the organization as clear strategies play an important role as argued by Hayes & Pisano (1994) says: “In today’s turbulent competitive environment, a company more than ever needs a strategy that specifies the kind of competitive advantage that it is seeking in the market-place and articulates how that advantage is to be achieved”. With management becoming more and more strategic Thompson (1987) criticized that scientific management that exercised to maximize efficiency and welcomed open-systems strategy which amplifies that organizations are natural, complex systems with more and large components that we need to grasp. Although for many centuries we have been practising operations management in various steps and procedures, modern operations management only emerged in 1950’s as argued by Meredith & Amoako-Gyampah, (1990). With the wide spread recognition of computers in the 1970s operations became more developed that control over workforce and schedules became a planning system. After the 1990s major breakthrough in operation management such as Total Quality Management (TQM) and Just-In-Time (JIT) practises are recognised by organizations and researchers. Furthermore slack (1991) & Skinner (1985) backed the idea that operations has a vital key role to play in implementing corporate strategies, it should also be involved in the formulation of strategies. This has developed the two concepts of Manufacturing strategy and operations strategy. Japan and china has been the two best examples for this. This is backed by Chase & Aquilano (1989). Arguably Adam & Swamidass, who clarifies that manufacturing strategy research, together with service operations and strategy research, form the background for an examination of operations management. Operations management issues such as Quality, technology, productivity come under heavy scrutiny. Buffa (1984), Hayes & Wheelwright (1984); Jolly (1987) and Starr (1988) say that manufacturing and services firms tend to share the desire for globalization for the distribution of goods and or services. Strategy is a wider range of scope, long term all-inclusive factor which the seniority of the hierarchy is concerned with. Operations on the other hand are a methodical, thorny factor which deals with the day-to-day issues and carried out by individuals towards the lower levels of the organizational hierarchy. Operations are really the opposite of strategic. But operations are the possessions that generate services and products, the parts of the business that tends to accomplish the customer’s needs.

Researchers such as Slack & Lewis (2007) argues that performance of operation or process is establish on Quality, Speed, Dependability, Flexibility and Cost. Quality being the requirement of the goods and or services, Speed being the time the operations commenced and the time it ended. Dependability being honouring the customer through delivering the required goods and or serviced as promised. Flexibility being the process to adapt to various stages and Cost being the major intention is the financial input that is provided to produce the products and or services. The ongoing processes of an organization cannot manage its daily routine functions without the actively participation of process technologies as competitive markets and consumers needs, which change day by day, require different aggressive products

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