Operations management is often used along with production management in literature on the subject.

It
is therefore, useful to understand the nature of operations management .Operations management is
understood as the process whereby resources or inputs are converted into more useful products .A
second reading of the sentence reveals that, there is hardly any difference between the terms
produ7ction management and operations management .But, there are a least two points of distinction
between production management and operations management .First, the term production
management is more used for a system where tangible goods are produced .Whereas ,operations
management is more frequently used where various inputs are transformed into tangible services
.Viewed from this perspective, operations management will cover such services organization as banks
,airlines ,utilities ,pollution control agencies super bazaars, educational institutions ,libraries
,consultancy firm and police departments, in addition ,of course ,to manufacturing enterprises. The
second distinction relates to the evolution of the subject. Operation management is the term that is
used now a days .Production management precedes operations management in the historical growth of
the subject

The two distinctions not withstanding, the terms production management and operations management
are used interchargeably .

Scope of Production and Operation Management

The scope of production and operations management is indeed vast .Commencing with the selection of
location production management covers such activities as acquisition of land, constructing building
,procuring and installing machinery ,purchasing and storing raw material and converting them into
saleable products.

Added to the above are other related topics such as quality management ,maintenance management
,production planning and control, methods improvement and work simplification and other related
areas.

Evolution of Production Function

In order to trace the evolution of production function, we identify six historical developments :the
Industrial Revolution ,scientific management , the human relations movement ,operations research,
computers and advanced production technology and the service revolution A brief explanation of each
stage follows.

The industrial Revolution

Since times ancient production systems were used in oe form or another. The Egyptian Pyramids, the
Greek Parthenon, the Great Wall o0f China and the aquaducts and the roads of the Roman Empire ,
dams and anicuts built by the Chola kings attest to the ingenuity and industry of the people of ancient
times But the ways the people in the ancient days produced goods were different from the production
methods of today. Production systems prior to the 1700s are often referred to as the cottage system,
because the production of goods took place in homes or cottages ,where craftsman directed apprentices
in performing hand work on, products.

From 1770 to the early 1800s series of events took p[lace in England which together are called the
Industrial Revolution. Industrial Revolution resulted in two major developments: widespread
substitution of machine power for human power and establishment of the factory system.

The events that took p[lace from 1770 to the 1800s are characterized by great inventions. The great
inventions were eight in number ,with six of them having been conceived in England, one in France and
one in the United States .The eight inventions are—Hargreaves Spinning Jenny, Arkwright’s Water
Frame, Crompton’s Mule, Cartwright’s Power Loom, Watt’s steamengine, Berthollet’s Chlorine Bleaching
Discovery.Mandslay’s Screw-Cutting Lathe and Eli Whitney’s Interchangeable Manufacture.

As observed from eight inventions ,most of them have to do with the spinning of yarn and weaving of
cloth .This is logical from the point o view that cloth was the principal export commodity of England at
that time and was in short supply owi8ng to the considerable expansion of England’s colonial empire
and its commercial trade.

The availability of machine power greatly facilitated the gathering of workers in factories that housed
the machines .The large number of workers congregated in the factories ,created the need for
organizing them in logical ways to produce goods. The publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of
Nations in 1776 advocated the benefits of the division of labor or specialization of labor ,which broke
production of goods into small specialized tasks that were assigned to workers on production lines.
Thus, the factories of late 1700s not only had developed production machinery ,but also ways of
planning and controlling the output of workers
The impact of the Industrial Revolution was first felt in England .From here, it spread to other European
countries and to the United states.

The Industrial Revolution advanced further with the development of the gasoline engine and electricity
in the 1800s.Other industries emerged and along with them new factories came into being.By the
middle of 1800s. the old cottage system of production had been laced by the factory system .As days
went by, production capacities expanded ,demand for capital grew and labor became highly dependant
on jobs and urdanised. At the commencement of the 20 th century ,the one element that was missing
was a management –the ability to develop and use the existing facilities to produce on a large scale to
meet massive markets of today.

IMPORTANCE:

is an important field in business which comprises all the aspects of production, efficiency and production
related processes. The practices and theories involved in Production and Operations Management
equally apply to service sector as well. The important part of Operations Management include
forecasting, identifying bottlenecks in operations, increasing efficiency of business by using various tools
such as PERT/CPM, statistical analysis such as moving averages, exponential smoothing method, Mean
Absolute Deviation (MAD) etc. Material Resource Planning (MRP) is an important part of Operations
Management for creating bill of materials and identifying the needs for units of production. Inventory
management, time management, production plans, layout strategies are important aspects which lead
to higher efficiency and cost effectiveness.

It helps in optimizing the process of operations in the production process of the goods to increase
efficiencies and productivity.