Introduction to operations management

Résumé du document

Operations Management is basically the "planning, organizing and control of all the resources and activities to provide goods and services". It takes place in each organization (factories, offices, etc) and includes numerous disciplines such as Human Resources Management, Quality Management or Labor Organization.

Operations managers must organize several elements in different domains when they do their job. These fields are often said to be seven, explained thanks to the "7 Ss model": structure, systems, style, staff, skills and strategy.

This model describes the internal elements with which Operations Management is connected, but this discipline is also linked with numerous external factors. Competition, regulations & laws, new technologies or customer demands are examples of external elements that have a strong influence on decisions made by Operations managers planning the labor chain.

That is why all the changes that happened in the world during the past few years (globalization, new technologies) have led to changes inside companies and in the way they are managed. New imperatives have appeared, they can be economic, legal, ethic or based on quality but they all need to be taken into account by Operations managers to be fulfilled.

Extraits

[...] Operations managers must organise all the activities leading to the production of an item in order to make is as efficient and effective as possible, but according to some customers they must also take care of the impact these activities can have on the environment. The increasing ecological concern can lead some Operations managers to decide to buy some equipments a bit more expensive but less polluting. They engage higher costs but if customers become aware of this investment the image of the firm will improve (and attract new customers). Once again they have to arbitrate between two different points of view to find the right compromise. [...]

[...] (1996) A cost benefit model for decision making in supplier development activities in Cox, A. (Ed). Innovations in Procurement Management, Earlsgate Press, Boston, Lincolnshire [viii] Boéri, D. (2006) Maîtriser la Qualité et le Management éthique : Tout sur la certification (normes ISO 9001-v.2000) la qualité totale, (3rd Maxima - Laurent du Mesnil éditeur Heizer, J. & Render, B. [...]

[...] The problem of quality is likely to be harder and harder to deal with for Operations managers who work in firms that want to become multinational. They have to produce at a larger scale and as a consequence must increase their capacity of production (speed, quantities ) without scarifying the quality of their products. The reduction of inventory & delays In the past factories used to produce as much as they could, the only limit was their capacity of production. [...]

[...] That is another role of Operations managers to deal with “just-in-time” methods. Stocks must be as small as possible but the company must be able to respond to an increase of the demand (if raw materials are missing they wont be able to prepare the client's order and he will switch to another provider). With the new trends of our actual society products life cycles are shorter, products are more customized and everything is faster[ix] so the firms have to be more and more reactive to be able to face the markets' changes. [...]

[...] During the past few years there have been many changes: empowerment of customers (and employees), acceleration of transactions, increase of ecological or ethical concerns Operations managers have always had to reconcile two opposite points of view: the firm wants to produce the right thing at the right time to be able to sell it a high price to have a good profit margin. Customers want everything everywhere for a low price and at every time, and they want the providers to respect their values. Nowadays their job is still the same but they must deal with an always increasing number of factors. Waller, D. (2004) Operations Management A supply chain approach, Thomson Learning Peters, T. & Waterman, R. (1982) In Search of Excellence, New York, London: Harper & Row. [...]