Nicole T.

Aretaño
2BSA4
Assign#1
OPEMAN-18

Assignment#1 Questions
1.1. What activities are involved in the operations function? How does operations
interact with other functional areas?

 Operations Management involves the planning, scheduling, and control of

activities that transform inputs into finished goods and services.

 The operations function can be connected to other functional

operations within organization such as marketing, finance, human
resource and etc. The operations manager is the person who supervised
the production, make decision on operations processes and regarding to
connecting into other functional areas.

 An operations manager has the important duty of ensuring that all of

these different cogs work together in achieving both their individual goals,
and the goals of the company as whole.

 One reality that distinguishes operations management for the human

service industry versus the manufacturing sector is that services can not be
inventoried. Health services must be provided “on demand” to the
consumer. This lack of inventory presents serious implications for the
management of a service organization because of the increased need to
plan carefully to ensure that appropriate services are available when
needed. Not only is health care service provision vulnerable to cyclical
variation due to calendar events such as holidays or the commencement of
school, but health services must be available in the event of unanticipated
circumstances such as an outbreak of a communicable disease.

 Therefore, scheduling for normal operations as well as for times of

unusual demand generates the need to build a system where personnel are
responsive to the need to increase capacity. Public health care planners
often refer to this ability to react to times of unanticipated increased
demand as surge capacity.

1.2. What constitutes “operations” at (a) a bank, (b) a retail store, (c) a hospital, (d) a
cable TV company?

 a. Operations at a bank consist of providing loans, collecting savings, and

providing safety deposit boxes

 b. Operations at a retail store consist of selling the product in return for

money, designing the floor layout to encourage purchases, and stocking
shelves from inventory or new shipments.

 c. Operations at a hospital consist of giving care to patients or doing

research on new drugs or treatments. This includes nurses taking basic
Nicole T. Aretaño
2BSA4
Assign#1
OPEMAN-18

blood pressure and temperature to surgeons performing open heart surgery

on patients.

 d. Operations at a TV company include providing content for the

customer to view, and selling advertisements to show to customers.

1.3. Briefly describe how operations has evolved from the Industrial Revolution to the
Digital Revolution.
  During the industrial revolution (1770s), goods were produced in small
shops by craftsmen and their apprentices. In the 18th century a number of
innovations substituted machine power for human power (steam engine).
The development of the gauging system gave the industrial revolution a
boost, reducing the need for custom made goods.
 The scientific management era brought Fredrick Taylor’s methods to
light. He studied work methods of work to identify the best method for
doing each job. His method’s emphasized maximizing output. In the early
10th century, mass production, interchangeable parts, and division of labor
maximized output in the automobile industry as well as others. The
human relations movement emphasized the importance of the human
element in job design. Managers became aware of the idea that worker
motivation is critical to improve productivity.
 People nowadays are looking for the information from the internet. It is
difficult for us to avoid the use of the internet (Ironbound Press). We all
see nowadays people start to exchangeinformation through internet for bu
siness purposes. For example is the development of e-commerce has
brought the distribution of any form of customer approach through the
benefit of technological progress (Efendioglu, Yip, Murray). The way
business making transactions are no longer relying on a physical form, but
now only as far as a finger touch.
 Mobile-commerce,electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, int
ernet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange
, inventory management system, automated datacollection systems are
some of the examples of area changes from the traditional way to the
modern way using the internet and technological advances.

1.4. What is productivity? How is it measured?

 Productivity is commonly defined as a ratio between the output volume

and the volume of inputs. In other words, it measures how efficiently
production inputs, such as labor and capital, are being used in an economy
to produce a given level of output.
 Nicole T. Aretaño
2BSA4
Assign#1
OPEMAN-18

 Productivity is considered a key source of economic growth and

competitiveness and, as such, is basic statistical information for many
international comparisons and country performance assessments. For
example, productivity data are used to investigate the impact of product
and labor market regulations on economic performance.

 Productivity growth constitutes an important element for modelling the

productive capacity of economies. It also allows analysts to determine
capacity utilization, which in turn allows one to gauge the position of
economies in the business cycle and to forecast economic growth. In
addition, production capacity is used to assess demand and inflationary
pressures.

 After computing the contributions of labor and capital to output, the so-
called multi-factor productivity (MFP) can be derived. It measures the
residual growth that cannot be explained by the rate of change in the
services of labor, capital and intermediate outputs, and is often interpreted
as the contribution to economic growth made by factors such as technical
and organizational innovation.

1.5. What is the balanced scorecard? How does it relate to operations?

 A balanced scorecard is a performance metric used to identify, improve, and

control a business's various functions and resulting outcomes.
 It was first introduced in 1992 by David Norton and Robert Kaplan, who took
previous metric performance measures and adapted them to include
nonfinancial information.
 The balanced scorecard involves measuring four main aspects of a business:
learning and growth, business processes, customers, and finance.

Sources:

https://www.aucd.org/docs/lend/hadmin/op_overview.pdf

https://catalogimages.wiley.com/images/db/pdf/9781119588726.excerpt.pdf

https://www.oecd.org/sdd/productivity-stats/40526851.pdf

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/balancedscorecard.asp