OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Introduction

It is accepted that the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and 19th centuries
produced a new form of social organisation. Manufacturing, in particular textile mills,
foundries and machine manufacturers grew in size. As mining and manufacturing
became more mechanised and in particular manufacturing became more centralised
and moved away from the cottage industry and craft skills that were prevalent, then
interest also started to develop in methods and techniques for making production
processes as efficient as possible. What started out as the initial concern of some
economists for example, Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations. 1776) rapidly
developed into a subject within its own right. See the link below ….
http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/smith/farrer.html

The following quote is from the opening chapter of Book One of 'The Wealth of
Nations' In this short paragraph Adam Smith describes one of the basic tenets of
mass production, ‘the benefits to be derived from splitting a task into its component
parts and in training individuals to become specialist in one or two small subjections
of the total task’, in other words the division of labour. Adam Smith wrote as follows:-

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which
the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-
maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has
rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery
employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably
given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in
a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business
is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into
a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One
man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth
grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make the head requires two or three
distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is
another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important
business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct
operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands,
though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I
have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed,
and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct
operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently
accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted
themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are
in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons,
therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day.
Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be
considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had
all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been
educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have
made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is certainly, not the two hundred
and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are
at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and
combination of their different operations.

The need for efficiency within manufacturing and other similar processes (for
example, building ships, erecting buildings, making roads or cars, or computers, in
fact virtually every artifact that you use) although a by-product of the Industrial
Revolution for us, has always been of interest to virtually all previous civilizations and
peoples. The Stone Age archeological dig at Penmaenmawr (North Wales) shows
evidence of this division. Blocks of Welsh green stone were rough quarried in one
section, then rough shaped in a different section and so on to the final product. It is
estimated that there were up to eight divisions. A mass production unit? Possibly. A
division of labour? Certainly.

Much later, the skills required to build and maintain the fighting fleet of the rulers of
Venice, predated the ideas of Henry Ford by some 450 years. Providing a ship
assembly process along the Grand Canal which could build a 30 seater fighting
vessel in less than a day. During a visit by Henry IV of England a demonstration of
ship assembly was arranged, the whole activity took just about an hour and resulted
in a 30 seater fighting vessel ready and equipped. (There is more than a slight
suspicion that this demonstration was very well rehearsed). The master craftsmen
who designed and developed this assembly system recognised the need for
conformance in build and component standards. They understood the need for
maintenance systems as well as the need to hold the correct amount of inventory, so
as to balance the cost of holding materials with the anticipated need for those
materials. Ideas which still test the capabilities of present day operations and
production managers. The whole site covered 60 acres and employed up to 2,000
people. They practiced techniques which today are recognised as invaluable to the
efficient running of a manufacturing or service providing organisation. They
understood the need for Work Study and Value Engineering. Significantly
predating those ideas developed by Charles Babbage (On The Economy of Machine
and of Manufactures)
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Babbage.html

Frederick Taylor (Scientific Management)

http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/archive/courses/liu/english25/materials/taylor.ht
ml and Frank and Lillien Gilbreth (Work Study, Method Study, Industrial Psychology
and Ergonomics)
http://gilbrethnetwork.tripod.com/bio.html

From the brief history of the subject shown above you can deduce that Operations
Management (OM) is really a discipline that depends heavily on a structured
collection of tools, ideas and techniques that, when used appropriately, allow the
management of production and the provision of a service to be efficiently carried out.

A common criticism from students is that the subject is no more than applied
common sense, and to some extent this is probably correct. However, this common
sense can be learned. A further criticism is that the subject deals only with
manufacturing . Whilst it is true to say that the subject area started with
manufacturing, changes in society over the last 40 years or so have meant that the
service sector has also benefited from techniques that had originally been developed
for the manufacturing sector. The difficulty of course is in adapting these ideas.
Some translate really well, general process analysis techniques for example. Others
do tend not to fit at all, Just in Time for example does not fit that neatly into the
service paradigm (fast food outlets being the obvious exception). In many ways it is
up to the service developer to adapt techniques to fit – as we will see, some
organizations have been remarkably good at doing just that.

Malcolm Afferson 2005