Anne Liah D.

Romero

BSA2205 – BSMA1E

INTRODUCTION TO OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

What is Operations Management?

 It is the corporate function responsible for planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling the
resources required to produce a company's goods and services.
 It is a management function that involves the management of people, equipment, technology,
information, and a variety of other resources.
 It is the primary core function of any organization, regardless of size, whether it produces a
physical good or a service, and whether it is for-profit or not-for-profit.

Roles of Operations Management:

 To transform a company’s inputs into the finished goods or services. Human resources (such
as employees and managers), facilities and procedures (such as buildings and equipment),
materials, technology, and information are all examples of inputs. The items and services
produced by a corporation are referred to as its outputs.

 To coordinate all of the resources required to complete the final product. This involves
planning the product, determining what resources are required, arranging schedules, equipment,
and facilities, managing inventories, monitoring quality, developing the jobs that will be used to
create the product, and creating work practices.

 Responsible for all steps in the process of converting inputs into outputs. Customer feedback
and performance data are utilized to continuously adjust the inputs, transformation process, and
output attributes.

Principles of Operations Management

 Reality

In fact, operations managers rely on dynamic challenges rather than plans because there are no means for
providing uniform responses.
  Organization

Industrial production techniques are inextricably connected. All components must be secure and
trustworthy in order to provide consistent earnings and income in the future.

 Fundamentals

The secret to success in the production cycle is for operations management to understand how to follow
all of the essential principles. In order to generate the desired outcomes, it is important to verify that
product records, BOMs, and other general activities are properly functioning.

 Accountability

Managers are expected to establish standards and targets for assessing their employees' roles and to
examine how the goals are being met on a regular basis. This is the only way the operations manager can
get the necessary output from the employees.

 Variance

Procedures that vary must be accepted. This is owing to the fact that, if managed correctly, variants may
be a source of creativity. They may also lead to greater labor efficiency.

 Causality

Even when the best efforts are made, challenges can always happen. Managers must discover the core
source of the problem so that it does not worsen; otherwise, the same causes and problems will reoccur.

 Managed Passion

Employee productivity might be the most important factor influencing corporate performance. Managers
must be willing to encourage and motivate their workers to be enthusiastic about their employment.

 Humility

Everyone has to deal with an arrogant know-it-all from time to time. This also requires operations
managers to see themselves as ordinary people who don't know everything and, as a result, make mistakes
just like everyone else.

 Success

Managers must be able to correctly define what they find effective so that everyone in the organization is
aware of the rules to follow in order to accomplish the goals.

 Change

Everyone in the organization must be ready to adapt to industry trends. It entails knowing your
consumers, your target markets, and what they want. For example, constantly requires the use of digital
technology to ensure that the firm remains competitive. Everyone in the organization must be ready to
adapt to industry trends. It entails knowing your consumers, your target markets, and what they want. For
example, constantly requires the use of digital technology to ensure that the firm remains competitive.

Importance of Operations Management

So it's not a leap to assume that the management of an activity affects all aspects of a business. It may
plan, direct, and encourage the development of products and services. Corporate leaders must be willing
to operate efficiently and productively in order to grow income, which are the primary determinants of
company performance, in order to flourish in an ever-changing industry.

Customer service, product and service efficiency, clear operational practice, company competition,
technological developments, and productivity may all be influenced by operations management. If the
organization's activities are not controlled, it may suffer significant losses.

THE SCOPE OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

The operations management is primarily concerned with the conversion of input into physical resources
that meet the demands of the consumers. They must achieve organizational effectiveness, efficiency, and
flexibility.

 Facility Location

The selection of a location is an important consideration in the construction of a plant and other facilities.
An improper placement of the plant might lead to an erroneous location of the plant, resulting in a
significant waste of time, money, and resources.

 Material Handling

This activity is specialized for modern manufacturing concerns and refers to the ‘moving of materials
from the storehouse to the machine and from one machine to the next throughout manufacture.

 Product Design

As a strategy for long-term growth and sustainability, each firm enterprise will plan, manufacture, and
launch new goods. The most difficult issue that companies face is developing and marketing new goods
on the market. The whole cycle of recognizing the requirement for physical processing of commodities
necessitates three roles.

 Process Design

Product design and creation bridge the gap between marketing and customer wants and preferences. The
essential decisions in the process design are critical. It also assesses the workflow for converting raw
materials into final products. Finally, choose the workstation for each one utilized in the workflow.
  Production Planning and Control

The pre-production planning process includes output planning and management. It describes the specific
path of each object and sets the start and end dates for each product. Furthermore, it involves sending
orders to output shops. It also monitors the manufacture of items in accordance with orders.

 Quality Control

A quality control system is defined as ‘a system that maintains a desired degree of quality in a product or
service.' It is the systematic control of different factors that affect the product's quality. The goal of
quality control is to prevent problems from occurring in the first place. It also has a strong feedback
system and a corrective action mechanism in place.

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING

We will look at some of the particular decisions that operations managers must make in this section. The
simplest way to accomplish this is to consider the decisions we would have to make if we launched our
own firm, like Gourmet Wafers, which makes praline–pecan cookies from an old family recipe. Consider
the decisions that must be taken to get from the initial concept to the actual production of the product: this
is operations management.
In the table above, it breaks down into the generic decisions that would be appropriate for almost any
good or service, the specific decisions required for our example, and the formal terms for these
decisions that are used in operations management.

Figure 1. The relationship between strategic and tactical decisions

Strategic decisions are long-term decisions that establish the direction for the entire company. They are
wide in scope and serve as the foundation for subsequent, more detailed decisions. They answer queries
such, "What are the unique features of our product?", "What market do we plan to compete in?", and
"What do we believe will be the demand for our product?"

Tactical choices are short-term decisions that focus on certain departments and tasks. Tactical decisions
are primarily focused on day-to-day concerns, such as the quantity and timing of certain resources.
Strategic decisions are made first, and they guide tactical decisions, which are made more often and
consistently. As a result, we must begin with strategic decisions and then go on to tactical decisions.
Figure 1 depicts this relationship. Tactical decisions must be linked with strategic decisions since they are
critical to the company's long-term performance. Tactical decisions offer feedback to strategic decisions,
which may then be adjusted as needed.
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Manufacturing management was the origin of operations management in the eighteenth century. Adam
Smith, an economist, recognized that specialization of labor may be extremely helpful to any
organization's economics.

As a result, he developed the idea of dividing jobs into subunits, with only people skilled in a certain field
taking on the activity, not only to assure quick completion of the task, but also to further enhance their
abilities (Kumar, and Suresh, 2009). F. Taylor implemented this rule early in the twentieth century, which
led to the creation of scientific management. Since then, until the early 1990s, numerous innovations have
been developed based on the operation's traditions.

Adam Smith created the concept of labor specialization in the manufacturing business in 1776. This was
followed in 1799 by the invention of cost accounting by Eli Whitney and other scientists. Later, in 1832,
Charles Babbage developed division of labor and task assignment based on employee talents, as well as
the need for time management.

Frederick Taylor developed planning and work performance in the year 1900 based on scientific time
management. Soon after that, in 1900, Frank Gilbert proposed the motion of studying employment
(Wilson, 1995). This was followed by the development of strategies for staff scheduling as well as the
growth of manufacturing jobs that necessitated the use of machines.

Henry Gantt completed these two developments in 1901. F.W. Harris introduced the use of inventory for
economic control in 1915. The human relations department was developed by Elton Mayo in 1927. This
was followed by the use of statistical data to assess and manage the quality of diverse goods through the
use of quality control charts.

W.A. Shewart created this design in 1931. H.F. Dodge and H.F. Roming expanded on this contribution in
1935 by developing sample procedures to check product quality and for inspection reasons. In 1946, a
group of scientists led by P.M. Blacker contributed to the use of operations research in the Second World
War (Meredith, 2006).

In 1946, John Mauchlly and J.P. Eckert made a big contribution by developing digital computers. In
1947, G.B. Dantzig and William created software for programming business processes as a result of the
usage of computers.

Later, in 1950, two scientists, A. Charnes and W.W. Cooper, invented linear mathematical programming.
Although the first digital computer was multifunctional, Sperry Univak built large scale computers in
1951 to help with data computing. Later, in 1966, L. Cummings and L. Porter introduced organizational
behavior, with the goal of studying people in the workplace on a continual basis.

W. Skinner and J. Orlicky introduced the integration of all operations inside an organization into a
cohesive strategy with shared policies in 1970. In the same year, G Wright developed the use of
computers in the manufacturing industry, as well as material management and planning. W.E. Deming of
Japan introduced the use of quality productivity in 1980.
As a result, from the 1930s through the 2950s, the term production management was used. Managers all
across the world devised ways for more effective industrial processes. Since then, additional scientists
have begun to investigate sociology, particularly human behavior in the workplace, while mathematics
and computer scientists have created more complex tools for data analysis.

With these new developments emerged the term operations management, which placed a strong focus on
the expansion of the manufacturing sector. In addition, rather than the typical analyzing duties, an
emphasis was placed on production in managerial practices (Johnston, 1998).

REFERENCES:

Operations Management and its Definition, Principles, Strategies, Scope, Nature. (2021, April 29).
Retrieved from https://www.cheggindia.com/career-guidance/operations-management-definition-
principles-strategies/

“Operations Management: Historical Development and Impacts - 1981 Words | Essay Example.” Free
Essays, https://ivypanda.com/essays/operations-management-9/. Accessed 25 Aug. 2021.

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