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Operations may not run the world,

but they make the world run
Second
Edition
T
here has never been a more exciting time to study operations
management. Fast, frequent and fundamental changes to the
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everywhere, no matter how large or small. Operations Management
Essentials of Operations Management is the ideal text for those wanting

a concise introduction to the subject. Based on Slack and Brandon-Jones’
leading Operations Management, it focuses on essential core topics without
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★ Revised and updated to reflect the ever-changing world of resources to support your learning.
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★ Illustrations-based – rooted in real-life practice with a wealth • A personalised study plan.
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Nigel Slack
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learning objective.
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Essentials of Second
Operations Edition
Management
Nigel Slack
Alistair Brandon-Jones
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NOTE THAT ANY PAGE CROSS REFERENCES REFER TO THE PRINT EDITION

Brief contents
1 Operations management and performance 2
2 Operations strategy 38
3 Product and service innovation 70
4 Process design – resources 100
5 Process design – analysis 130
6 Supply chain management 162
7 Capacity management 198
8 Inventory management 234
9 Resource planning and control 274
10 Lean operations 308
11 Operations improvement 342
12 Quality management 376
13 Project management 408

vii
Contents
1
Guide to ‘Operations in practice’
examples xv Operations management and
performance
Preface xix
Introduction 3
To the instructor xxii
Key questions 3
To the student xxiii What is operations management? 4

Operations can produce both services and
Ten steps to getting a better grade in products 6
operations management xxiv Operations management in not-for-profit
organizations 9
About the authors xxvi
What is the input–transformation–output
Acknowledgements xxviii process? 10
Inputs to the process 11
Publisher’s acknowledgements xxx
Why is operations management important
to an organization’s performance? 13
Notes 440 Performance at three levels 14
Index 444 What is the processes hierarchy? 20
Operations management is relevant to all parts

of the business 21
Business processes 22
How do operations and processes

differ? 23
The volume dimension 24
The variety dimension 24
The variation dimension 24
The visibility dimension 25
The implications of the four Vs of operations
processes 26
What do operations managers do? 27
The model of operations management 31
Summary answers to key questions 32

Problems and applications 34
Want to know more? 36

viii CONTENTS
2 3
Operations strategy Product and service innovation
Introduction 39 Introduction 71
Key questions 39 Key questions 71
What is strategy and what is operations What is product and service

strategy? 40 innovation? 72
Operations strategy 42 Innovation, creativity and design 72
Hayes and Wheelwright’s four stages of Incremental or radical innovation 73
operations contribution 42
Perspectives on operations strategy 43 What is the strategic role of product and
service innovation? 75
What is the difference between a The process of design 76
‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ view of Design process objectives 76
operations strategy? 44
‘Top-down’ strategies 44 What are the stages of product and
‘Bottom-up’ strategies 45 service innovation? 81
Concept generation 82
What is the difference between a market Concept screening 83
requirements and operations resources Preliminary design 85
view of operations strategy? 47 Reducing design complexity 86
Market requirements-based strategies 47 Design evaluation and improvement 87
The operations resources perspective 52 Prototyping and final design 89
How can operations strategy form the What are the benefits of interactive
basis for operations improvement? 58 product and service innovation? 90
The ‘line of fit’ between market requirements Simultaneous development 90
and operations capabilities 58 Early conflict resolution 91
Project-based organizational structures 92
What is the ‘process’ of operations
strategy? 60 Summary answers to key questions 95
Operation strategy formulation 61
Operations strategy implementation 62
Operations strategy monitoring 62
Operations strategy control 63


ix
4 5
Process design – resources Process design – analysis
Why is choosing the right resources Why is it important to get the details of
important? 102 process design correct? 132
Process design and product/service design are
interrelated 102 What should be the objectives of process
design? 134
Do processes match volume–variety ‘Micro’ objectives 134
requirements? 103 Standardization of processes 136
The ‘product–process’ matrix 104 Environmentally sensitive process design 137
Process types 105
Moving off the natural diagonal 108 How are processes currently
designed? 138
Are process layouts appropriate? 110 Process mapping 139
Layout should reflect volume and variety 110
Layout selection 113 Are process tasks and capacity configured
Advantages and disadvantages of layout appropriately? 143
types 114 Throughput time, cycle time and work in
Layout and ‘servicescapes’ 114 progress 143
Workflow 147
Are process technologies appropriate? 115 Process bottlenecks 148
Process technology should reflect volume and Arranging the stages 149
variety 116
Is process variability recognized? 152
Are job designs appropriate? 119
Job design should reflect volume and Summary answers to key questions 157
variety 119 Problems and applications 159

To what degree should jobs be defined? 121 Want to know more? 161
How should job commitment be
encouraged? 123


x CONTENTS
6 7
Supply chain management Capacity management
What is supply chain management? 164 What is capacity management? 200
Internal and external supply chains 167 Long-, medium- and short-term capacity
Tangible and intangible supply chains 167 management 201
How do supply chains compete? 167 What are the main long-term capacity
Performance objectives for supply decisions? 201
networks 169 Economies of scale and the ‘optimum’ capacity
Lean versus agile supply networks 171 level 201
The timing of capacity change 203
How should you manage supply chain
relationships? 173 What are the main medium-term capacity
Contracting and relationships 173 decisions? 205
Which type of relationship? 176 The objectives of capacity management 206
Understanding medium-term demand 206
How should the supply side be managed? 177 Understanding medium-term capacity 207
Sourcing strategy 177 Both demand and capacity can vary 210
Global sourcing 180 Predictable and unpredictable variation 211
Supplier selection 180
Managing on-going supply 182 What are the ways of coping with
Improving supplier capabilities 184 mismatches between medium-term
demand and capacity? 213
How should the demand side be Level capacity plan 213
managed? 184 Chase demand plan 214
Logistics services 185 Demand management plan 216
Customer relationship management (CRM) 186 Yield management 218

Customer development 187
How can operations understand the
What are the dynamics of supply consequences of their medium-term
chains? 188 capacity decisions? 218
Controlling supply chain dynamics 190 Considering capacity decisions using
cumulative representations 219

xi
Considering capacity decisions using queuing

principles 220
Considering capacity decisions over time 225
Summary answers to key questions

227
8
Inventory management
Introduction 235
Key questions 235
What is inventory? 236
All processes, operations and supply networks

have inventories 237
Why do you need inventory? 239
So why have inventory? 240

Reducing physical inventory 243
Day-to-day inventory decisions 244
How much should you order? (The volume

decision) 245
The economic order quantity (EOQ)
formula 247
Gradual replacement – the economic batch
quantity (EBQ) model 251
Criticisms of EOQ models 252
When should you order? (The timing

decision) 254
Continuous and periodic review 258
How can you control inventory? 260
Using the ABC system to prioritize

inventories 261
Measuring inventory 263
Inventory information systems 263
Common problems with inventory systems 267


xii CONTENTS
9 10
Resource planning and control Lean operations
What is resource planning and What is lean? 310

control? 276 Three perspectives of lean 312
How lean operations consider flow 312
What is the difference between planning How lean operations consider inventory 314
and control? 278 How lean operations consider capacity
Long-, medium- and short-term resource utilization 315
planning and control 278 How lean operations consider the role of
people 315
How do supply and demand affect How lean operations consider
planning and control? 280 improvement 318
Uncertainty in supply and demand 280
Dependent and independent demand 280
How does lean eliminate waste? 318
Responding to demand 281 Causes of waste – muda, mura, muri 319

P:D ratios 284 Types of waste 319
Looking for waste (and kaizen opportunities)
What are the activities of planning and – the ‘gemba walk’ 321
control? 285 Eliminating waste through streamlined flow 321
Loading 285 Eliminating waste through matching demand
Sequencing 287 and supply exactly 326
Scheduling 291 Eliminating waste through flexible
Monitoring and controlling the operation 297
processes 328
Drum, buffer, rope 298 Eliminating waste through minimizing
variability 331
What is enterprise resource planning Keeping things simple – the 5S method 334
(ERP)? 299
How does lean apply throughout the
How did ERP develop? 301
supply network? 334
Problems and applications 304 Summary answers to key questions 337
Want to know more? 306 Problems and applications 338


xiii
What are the broad approaches to

improvement? 357
Total quality management as an improvement
11
approach 357
Lean as an improvement approach 358
Business process re-engineering (BPR) 358
Six Sigma 361
Operations improvement Differences and similarities 362
Introduction 343 What techniques can be used for

Key questions 343 improvement? 364
Scatter diagrams 364
Why is improvement so important in Process maps (flow charts) 365
operations management? 344 Cause–effect diagrams 367
Radical, or breakthrough, change 346 Pareto diagrams 367
Continuous, or incremental, improvement 347 Why–why analysis 368
Exploitation or exploration 347 Benchmarking 370
The structure of improvement ideas 348
Why is failure management also
improvement? 349
Assessing the potential causes and
consequences of failure 349
How can failure be prevented? 350
How can operations mitigate the effects of
failure? 351
How can operations recover from the effects of
failure? 351
What are the key elements of operations

improvement? 352
Improvement cycles 352
A process perspective 353
End-to-end processes 353
Evidence-based problem solving 353
Customer-centricity 354
Systems and procedures 354
Reduce process variation 355
Synchronized flow 356
Emphasize education/training 356
Perfection is the goal 356
Waste identification 356
Include everybody 356
Develop internal customer–supplier
relationships 357

xiv CONTENTS
12 13
Quality management Project management
What is quality and why is it so What is project management? 410

important? 378 What do projects have in common? 410
The operation’s view of quality 378 What is project management exactly? 412
Customers’ view of quality 379 Not all projects are the same 412
Reconciling the operation’s and the customer’s The stages of project management 415
views of quality 380
How can quality problems be diagnosed? 383 What is a project’s ‘environment’? 416
The role of stakeholders in projects 416

What steps lead towards conformance to Project definition 418
specification? 384
Step 1 – define the quality characteristics 385 How can projects be planned? 420
Step 2 – decide how to measure each Identify activities – the work breakdown
characteristic 386 structure 420
Step 3 – set quality standards 386 Estimate times and resources 421
Step 4 – control quality against those standards 387 Identify relationships and dependencies 422
Steps 5 and 6 – find and correct causes of poor Identify schedule constraints 426
quality and continue to make improvements 393 Fix the schedule 427
Network analysis 428
What is total quality management (TQM)? 394 Program evaluation and review technique
TQM as an extension of previous practice 394 (PERT) 429
The principles of TQM 395
TQM means meeting the needs and How can projects be controlled? 432
expectations of customers 396 Project monitoring 432
TQM means covering all parts of the Assessing project performance 433
organization 396 Intervening to change the project 433
TQM means including every person in the Managing matrix tensions 434
organization 397
TQM means all costs of quality are considered 398 Summary answers to key questions 435
TQM means developing the systems and Problems and applications 437
procedures that support quality and Want to know more? 439
improvement 401


xv
Guide to ‘Operations
in practice’ examples
Company/ Sector/ Company

Chapter Location example Region activity size
Chapter 1 p.5 Prêt A Manger Global Retail Medium
Operations p.8 Torchbox UK Web designers Small
management p.9 MSF Global Charity Medium
p.19 LEGO Global Manufacturing Large
p.26 Ski Verbier Europe Hospitality Large
p.27 Formule 1 Switzerland Hospitality Small
Chapter 2 p.41 SSTL UK Aerospace Medium

Operations p.48 Apple retail Global Retail Large
strategy p.55 Contrasting Global Microchips Large
strategies: ARM
versus Intel
p.57 Apple’s supply Global Technology Large
operations strategy
p.63 Sometimes any Europe Military Large
plan is better than
no plan
Chapter 3 p.74 How iPhone Global Technology/ Large

Product and disrupted the retail
service smartphone market
innovation p.79 IKEA's slow Global Retail Large
development
process
p.81 Product innovation UK Entertainment Small
in circular economy
p.87 Art Attack! Europe Media Medium
Chapter 4 p.109 Space4 housing UK Construction Medium

Process p.112 ‘Factory flow’ helps UK Healthcare Medium
design – surgery productivity
resources p.118 Technology or General All N/A
people?
p.122 High customer- General Airline Large
contact jobs

xvi GUIDE TO ‘OPERATIONS IN PRACTICE’ EXAMPLES

Chapter 5 p.133 Changi Airport Singapore Air travel Large
Process p.137 Fast food General Restaurants Large
design – p.143 Sainsbury’s line UK Retail Large
analysis of visibility
p.155 Shouldice Hospital Canada Healthcare Small
Chapter 6 p.166 Ocado UK Retail Medium

Supply chain p.168 Managing Apple’s Global Technology Large
management supply network
p.170 The North Face Global Retail Medium
of sustainable
purchasing
p.181 The tsunami effect Global All N/A
Chapter 7 p.203 Heart surgery and India/ Healthcare/ Large

Capacity shipping global transport
management p.209 Panettone Italy Food production Large
p.217 Annualized hours UK Retail Small
at Lowaters
Chapter 8 p.237 An inventory Global Energy Large

Inventory of energy
management p.244 Treasury Wine’s Australasia Retail Large
hangover
p.254 Inventory South Africa Wholesale Medium
management at
Flame Electrical
p.261 Amazon’s Global Retail Large
‘anticipatory
shipping’
Chapter 9 p.277 BMW scheduling UK Motor service Medium

Resource p.288 Can airline General Air transport N/A
planning passengers be
and control sequenced?
p.294 The life and times General Food N/A
of a chicken production
sandwich

xvii

Chapter 10 p.311 Jamie’s ‘lean’ meals UK Retail Medium
Lean p.317 Toyota’s lean DNA Global Manufacturing Large
operations p.324 Waste reduction in Global Air travel N/A
airline maintenance
p.329 Kanban control at UK Web design Small
Torchbox web
designers
p.330 All change at Global Air travel Large
Boeing
Chapter 11 p.345 Sonae Corporation Portugal Retail Large

Operations p.355 Heineken Netherlands Brewing Large
improvement p.370 Learning from UK Sport/transport Medium
Formula One
Chapter 12 p.380 Victorinox/ Switzerland Manufacturing Medium

Quality Four Seasons Global Hospitality Large
management p.383 Quality at Magic UK Personal service Small
Moments
p.388 Ryanair reforms its Europe Airline Large
view of service
quality
p.397 Fat finger syndrome General Financial services N/A
Chapter 13 p.411 Imagineering Global Entertainment Large

Project projects at Disney
management p.413 Halting the growth Global Healthcare Large
of malaria
p.424 The Scottish Scotland Government Medium
Parliament Building

xviii
Supporting resources
Visit www.pearsoned.co.uk/slack to find valuable online resources
MyLab Operations Management
For students
● Interactive tutorial exercises with immediate feedback
● A personalized study plan with a range of self-assessment questions
● Excel spreadsheets designed to help support your understanding of key concepts
● An online glossary to explain key terms
● Flashcards to test your understanding of key terms
For instructors
● Operations management simulations allow students to apply key theory to real business
scenarios
● A homework and assignment manager, allowing you to assign exercises for your students
● A Gradebook which tracks students’ performance on sample tests as well as assessments of your
own design
The Companion Website provides suggested model answers to the first question in the ‘problems
and applications’ section of each chapter.
For more information please contact your local Pearson Education sales representative
or visit www.pearsoned.co.uk/slack

xix
Preface
INTRODUCTION – OPERATIONS MAY NOT RUN THE WORLD, BUT IT

MAKES THE WORLD RUN.
Operations management is important. It is concerned with creating the

services and products upon which we all depend. All organizations produce
some mixture of services and products, whether that organization is large or
small, manufacturing or service, for profit or not for profit, public or private.
Thankfully, most companies have now come to understand the importance of
operations. This is because they have realized that effective operations
management gives the potential to improve both customer service and
efficiency simultaneously. But more than this, operations management is
everywhere; it is not confined to the operations function. All managers,
whether they are called Operations or Marketing or Human Resources or
Finance, or whatever, manage processes and serve customers (internal or
external). This makes at least part of their activities ‘operations’.
Operations management is also exciting. It is at the centre of so many of the

changes affecting the business world – changes in customer preference,
changes in supply networks brought about by internet-based technologies,
changes in what we want to do at work, how we want to work, where we want
to work and so on. There has rarely been a time when operations management
was more topical or more at the heart of business and cultural shifts.
Operations management is also challenging. Promoting the creativity that will

allow organizations to respond to so many changes is becoming the prime
task of operations managers. It is they who must find the solutions to
technological and environmental challenges, the pressures to be socially
responsible, the increasing globalization of markets and the difficult-to-define
areas of knowledge management.
THE AIM OF THIS BOOK
This book provides a clear, authoritative, well-structured and interesting

treatment of operations management as it applies to a variety of businesses
and organizations. The text provides both a logical path through the activities
of operations management and an understanding of their strategic context.

xx PREFACE
More specifically, this text is:
★ strategic in its perspective – it is unambiguous in treating the

operations function as being central to competitiveness
★ conceptual in the way it explains the reasons why operations managers

need to take decisions
★ comprehensive in its coverage of the significant ideas and issues that

are relevant to most types of operation
★ practical in that the issues and challenges of making operations

management decisions in practice are discussed (the ‘Operations in
practice’ examples that feature in every chapter explore the approaches
taken by operations managers in practice)
★ global in the examples that are used, with descriptions of operations

practice from all over the world, and in the treatment of core OM ideas
★ balanced in its treatment, in that it accurately reflects the balance of

economic activity between service and manufacturing operations.
WHO SHOULD USE THIS BOOK?
This book is for anyone who is interested in how services and products are
created:
★ Undergraduates on business studies, technical or joint degrees should

find it sufficiently structured to provide an understandable route
through the subject (no prior knowledge of the area is assumed).
★ MBA students should find that its practical discussions of operations

management activities enhance their own experiences.
★ Postgraduate students on other specialist Master’s degrees should

find that it provides them with a well-grounded and, at times, critical
approach to the subject.
DISTINCTIVE FEATURES
Clear structure
The structure of the book uses the ‘4 Ds’ model of operations management
that distinguishes between the strategic decisions that govern the direction of
the operation, the design of the processes and operations that create
products and services, planning and control of the delivery of products and
services, and the development, or improvement, of operations.

xxi
Illustrations-based
Operations management is a practical subject and cannot be taught
satisfactorily in a purely theoretical manner. Because of this we have used
examples and short ‘operations in practice’ examples that explain some of the
issues faced by real operations.
Summary answers to key questions

Each chapter is summarized in the form of a list of bullet points. These extract
the essential points that answer the key questions posed at the beginning of
each chapter.
Problems and applications

Every chapter includes a set of problem-type exercises. These can be used to
check your understanding of the concepts illustrated in the worked examples.
There are also activities that support the learning objectives of the chapter,
which can be undertaken individually or in groups.
Want to know more?

Every chapter ends with a short list of further reading that takes the topics
covered in the chapter further, or treats some important, related issues. The
nature of each further reading is also explained.

xxii
To the instructor
THE ESSENTIALS SECOND EDITION
When we created the first edition of Essentials we hoped that we were

keeping up with the requirements and preferences of our book users. We
were responding to what we thought was a demand from both lecturers and
students for a text aimed at shorter, more introductory courses in operations
management. We believed that there was a demand for an authoritative but
not necessarily fully comprehensive text. It appears we were right. The first
edition of Essentials, based on the approach that has made both Operations
Management and Operations and Process Management market-leading texts,
was particularly well received – hence this second edition.
★ We have retained the concept of a text that is shorter than its

companion texts, with coverage focused on what extensive research
indicates are key topics. In some cases, this has involved incorporating
content from more than one chapter of our longer texts. For example,
in this edition we have combined operations management and
operations performance content to free up space for an additional
chapter on project management that wasn’t in the first edition.
★ We have also retained many learning features, including ‘Operations in

practice’ examples, ‘Key questions’, ‘Worked examples’, ‘Test your
knowledge’, ‘Problems and applications’, and the ‘Want to know
more?’ features.
★ What is new to this edition, in addition to many new examples and

increased coverage of some topics, is that for the first time we offer
model answers to the ‘Problems and applications’ exercises at the end of
each chapter. Answers to the first question are included in the companion
student website to this text. Answers to the other questions are available
to bona fide lecturers and tutors in order to support their teaching.

xxiii
To the student
MAKING THE MOST OF THIS TEXT
All academic texts in business management are, to some extent,

simplifications of the messy reality that is actual organizational life. Any book
has to separate topics in order to study them, which in reality are closely
related. For example, operations strategy impacts on process design, which in
turn impacts on approach to quality management; yet, for simplicity, we are
obliged to treat these topics individually. The first hint, therefore, in using this
text effectively is to look out for all the links between the individual topics.
Similarly, with the sequence of topics, although the chapters follow a logical
structure, they need not be studied in this order. Every chapter is, more or
less, self-contained. Therefore, study the chapters in whatever sequence is
appropriate to your course or your individual interests. The same applies to
revision – study the introductory passages and ‘Test your knowledge’ sections.
The text makes full use of the many practical examples and illustrations that
can be found in all operations. Many of these were provided by our contacts
in companies, but many also come from journals, magazines and newspapers.
So, if you want to understand the importance of operations management in
everyday business life, look for examples and illustrations of operations
management decisions and activities in newspapers and magazines. There are
also examples that you can observe every day. Whenever you use a shop, eat
a meal in a restaurant, access music via your phone or ride on public
transport, consider the operations management issues of all the operations
for which you are a customer.
The ‘Problems and applications’ exercises are there to provide an opportunity

for you to think further about the ideas discussed in the chapters. They can be
used to test out your understanding of the specific points and issues
discussed in the chapter and to discuss them as a group, if you choose. If you
cannot answer these you should revisit the relevant parts of the chapter. When
you have done this individually, try to discuss your analysis with other course
members. Most important of all, every time you analyze one of the case
exercises (or any other case or example in operations management), start off
your analysis with these two fundamental questions:
★ How is this organization trying to compete (or satisfy its strategic

objectives if a not-for-profit organization)?
★ What can the operation do to help the organization compete more

effectively?

xxiv
Ten steps to getting a

better grade in operations
management
We could say that the best rule for getting a better grade is to be good. We
mean really, really good! But, there are plenty of us who, while fairly good,
don’t get as good a grade as we really deserve. So, if you are studying
operations management, and you want a really good grade, try following
these simple steps:
Practice, practice, practice. Use the ‘Test your knowledge’
1 and the ‘Problems and applications’ features to check your

understanding. Use the ‘Study plan’ feature in MyLabOM and
practice to master the topics that you find difficult.
Remember a few key models, and apply them wherever
2 you can. Use the diagrams and models to describe some of

the examples that are contained within each chapter. You can
also use the revision podcasts on MyLabOM.
Remember to use both quantitative and qualitative
3 analysis. You’ll get more credit for mixing your methods

appropriately: use a quantitative model to answer a
quantitative question and vice versa, but qualify this with a
few well-chosen sentences. Both the chapters of the text and
the exercises on MyLabOM incorporate qualitative and
quantitative material.
There’s always a strategic objective behind any
4 operational issue. Ask yourself, ‘Would a similar operation

with a different strategy do things differently?’. Look at the
‘Operations in practice’ pieces in the text.
Research widely around the topic. Use websites that you
5 trust – we’ve listed some good websites in the ‘Notes’ section

at the end of the text and on MyOMLab. You’ll get more credit
for using references that come from genuine academic sources.
Use your own experience. Every day, you’re
6 experiencing an opportunity to apply the principles of

operations management. Why is the queue at the airport

xxv
check-in desk so long? What goes on ‘behind the scenes’ to

deliver you the latest tech gadget? Use the clips on
MyLabOM to look further at operations in practice.
Always answer the question. Think ‘what is really being
7 asked here?’. ‘What topic or topics does this question cover?’

Find the relevant chapter or chapters, and search the ‘Key
questions’ at the beginning of each chapter and the ‘Test
your knowledge’ at the end of each chapter to get you
started.
Take account of the three tiers of accumulating marks
8 for your answers:

a) First, demonstrate your knowledge and understanding.
Make full use of the text and MyLabOM to find out where
you need to improve.
b) Second, show that you know how to illustrate and apply
the topic. The ‘Operations in practice’ sections, combined
with those on MyLabOM, give you hundreds of different
examples.
c) Third, show that you can discuss and analyze the issues
critically. Where appropriate, consider alternative
viewpoints.
Generally, if you can do (a) you will pass; if you can do (a) and
(b) you will pass well; and if you can do all three, you will pass
with flying colours!
Remember not only what the issue is about, but also
9 understand why! Read the text and apply your knowledge

until you really understand why the concepts and techniques
of operations management are important, and what they
contribute to an organization’s success. Your new-found
knowledge will stick in your memory, allow you to develop
ideas and enable you to get better grades.
Start now! Don’t wait until two weeks before an
10 assignment is due or an exam is about to take place. Read

on, log on (www.myomlab.com) and GOOD LUCK!
Nigel Slack and Alistair Brandon-Jones

xxvi
About the authors
Nigel Slack
Nigel Slack is an Emeritus Professor of Operations Management and Strategy

at Warwick University, an Honorary Professor at Bath University and an
Associate Fellow of Said Business School, Oxford University. Previously he has
been Professor of Service Engineering at Cambridge University, Professor of
Manufacturing Strategy at Brunel University, a University Lecturer in
Management Studies at Oxford University and Fellow in Operations
Management at Templeton College, Oxford. He worked initially as an
industrial apprentice in the hand-tool industry and then as a production
engineer and production manager in light engineering. He holds a Bachelor’s
degree in Engineering and Master’s and Doctor’s degrees in Management,
and is a Chartered Engineer. He is the author of many books in Operations
Management, including Operations Management (with Alistair Brandon-Jones
and Robert Johnston), the eighth edition published in 2016, Operations and
Process Management (with Alistair Brandon-Jones), the fifth edition published
in 2018, Operations Strategy (with Michael Lewis), the fourth edition
published in 2014, The Manufacturing Advantage, published in 1991, Making
Management Decisions (with Steve Cooke) published in 1991, Service
Superiority (with Robert Johnston), published in 1993, The Blackwell
Encyclopedic Dictionary of Operations Management, published in 1997, and
Perspectives in Operations Management (with Michael Lewis), published in
2003. Nigel has authored numerous academic papers and chapters in books.
He also acts as a consultant to many international companies around the
world in many sectors, especially financial services, transport, leisure and
manufacturing. His research is in the operations and manufacturing flexibility
and operations strategy areas.
Alistair Brandon-Jones
Alistair Brandon-Jones is a Full Chaired Professor in Operations and Supply

Management at the University of Bath, and an Adjunct Professor at Hult
International Business School. He was formerly a Reader at Manchester
Business School, an Assistant and Associate Professor at Bath University and a
Teaching Fellow at Warwick Business School, where he also completed his
PhD. In addition to Essentials of Operations Management, his other books
include Operations and Process Management (with Nigel Slack), the fifth
edition published in 2018, Operations Management (with Nigel Slack and
Robert Johnston), the eighth edition published in 2016 and Quantitative
Analysis in Operations Management (with Nigel Slack), published in 2008.
Alistair is an active empirical researcher, focusing on e-enabled operations

xxvii
and supply management, professional services and healthcare operations. He

has published this research extensively in world-leading journals including
Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Operations and
Production Management, International Journal of Production Economics and
International Journal of Production Research. He has also disseminated his
research through various practitioner publications, conferences, workshops
and white papers. Alistair has consulting and executive development
experience with organizations around the world, in various sectors including
petrochemicals, health, financial services, manufacturing, defence and
government. In addition, he has won numerous prizes for teaching excellence
and contributions to pedagogy, including from Times Higher Education,
Association of MBAs (AMBA), Production Operations Management Society
(POMS), University of Bath, University of Manchester and University of
Warwick.

xxviii
Acknowledgements
D
uring the preparation of our portfolio of books, we have received
an immense amount of help from friends and colleagues in the
operations management community. In particular, everybody who
has attended one of the regular ‘faculty workshops’ deserves
thanks for their many useful comments. The generous sharing of ideas from
these sessions has influenced this and all the other OM books that we
prepare. It is, to some extent, invidious to single out individuals – but we are
going to. We thank: Pär Åhlström of Stockholm School of Economics; James
Aitken of the University Of Surrey; Professor Sven Åke Hörte of Lulea
University of Technology; Eamonn Ambrose of University College, Dublin;
Andrea Benn of the University of Brighton; Yongmei Bentley of the University
of Bedfordshire; Helen Benton of Anglia Ruskin University; Ran Bhamra of
Loughborough University; Mattia Bianchi of the Stockholm School of
Economics; Tony Birch of Birmingham City University; Emma Brandon-Jones
of Bath University; John K. Christiansen of Copenhagen Business School;
Philippa Collins of Heriot-Watt University; Henrique Correa of Rollins College,
Florida; Paul Coughlan of Trinity College Dublin; Simon Croom of the
University of San Diego; Doug Davies of University of Technology, Sydney;
Stephen Disney of Cardiff University; Carsten Dittrich of the University of
Southern Denmark; Tony Dromgoole of the Irish Management Institute; David
Evans of Middlesex University; Ian Evans of Sunderland University; Paul
Forrester of Keele University; Abhijeet Ghadge of Heriot Watt University; Ian
Graham of Edinburgh University; J.A.C. de Haan of Tilburg University; Alan
Harle of Sunderland University; Norma Harrison of Macquarie University;
Catherine Hart of Loughborough Business School; Steve Hickman of
University of Exeter; Chris Hillam of Sunderland University; Ian Holden of
Bristol Business School; Matthias Holweg of Oxford University; Mickey Howard
of Exeter University; Kim Hua Tan of the University Of Nottingham; Stavros
Karamperidis of Heriot Watt University; Tom Kegan of Bell College of
Technology, Hamilton; Denis Kehoe of Liverpool University; Mike Lewis of
Bath University; Xiaohong Li of Sheffield Hallam University; Bart McCarthy of
Nottingham University; Peter McCullen of University of Brighton; John
Maguire of the University of Sunderland; Charles Marais of the University of
Pretoria; Roger Maull of Exeter University; Harvey Maylor of Cranfield
University; John Meredith Smith of EAP, Oxford; Michael Milgate of Macquarie
University; Keith Moreton of Staffordshire University; Chris Morgan of
Cranfield University; Adrian Morris of Sunderland University; Andy Neely of
Cambridge University; Steve New of Oxford University; John Pal of
Manchester Metropolitan University; Sofia Salgado Pinto of the Católica Porto
Business School; Gary Priddis of University of Brighton; Carrie Queenan of the
University of South Carolina; Peter Race of Henley College, Reading

xxix
University; Jawwad Raja, Copenhagen Business School; Gary Ramsden of

University of Lincoln; Steve Robinson of Southampton Solent University; Frank
Rowbotham of University of Birmingham; James Rowell of University of
Buckingham; Ian Sadler of Victoria University; Hamid Salimian of University of
Brighton; Sarah Schiffling of University of Lincoln; Alex Skedd of Northumbria
Business School; Andi Smart of Exeter University; Amrik Sohal of Monash
University; Dr Ebrahim Soltani of the University of Kent; Rui Soucasaux Sousa
of the Católica Porto Business School; Nigel Spinks of the University of
Reading; Martin Spring of Lancaster University; R. Stratton of Nottingham
Trent University; Dr. Nelson Tang of the University of Leicester; David Twigg of
Sussex University; Arvind Upadhyay of University of Brighton; Helen Valentine
of the University of the West of England; Professor Roland van Dierdonck of
the University of Ghent; Dirk Pieter van Donk of the University of Groningen;
Nick Wake, Hult International Business School; Vessela Warren of the
University of Worcester; Bill Wright of Bpp Professional; Ying Xie of Anglia
Ruskin University; Maggie Zeng of Gloucestershire University; and Li Zhou of
the University of Greenwich.
Our academic colleagues in the Operations Management Group at
Warwick and Bath also helped, both by contributing ideas and by creating a
lively and stimulating work environment. At Warwick, thanks go to Vikki
Abusidualghoul, Haley Beer, Nicola Burgess, Mehmet Chakkol, Max Finne,
Emily Jamieson, Mark Johnson, Pietro Micheli, Giovanni Radaelli, Ross Ritchie,
Rhian Silvestro, and Chris Voss. At Bath, thanks go to Maria Battarra, Emma
Brandon-Jones, Jie Chen, Günes Erdogan, Emmanuel Fragniere, Vaggelis
Giannikas, Andrew Graves, Yufei Huang, Jooyoung Jeon, Adam Joinson,
Richard Kamm, Mike Lewis, Sheik Meeran, Ibrahim Muter, Fotios Petropoulos,
Lukasz Piwek, Tony Roath, Jens Roehrich, Brian Squire, Kate Sugar, Christos
Vasilakis, Xingjie Wei, Emma Williams, and Baris Yalabik.
We were lucky to receive continuing professional and friendly assistance
from a great publishing team at Pearson. Especial thanks to Natalia Jaszczuk,
Catherine Yates, Carole Drummond, Akshay Samson, Shweta Sharma and
Emma Marchant.
Finally, to our families, who both supported and tolerated our nerdish
obsession. Thanks are inadequate, but thanks anyway to Angela and Kathy,
and Emma and Noah.
Nigel Slack and Alistair Brandon-Jones

xxx
Publisher’s
acknowledgements
We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright

material:
Figures
Figure 7.5 Adapted from What is the right supply chain for your product?,
Harvard Business Review, March–April, pp. 105 –16 (Fisher, M.C. 1997);
Figure 12.1 From from The EFQM Website, www.efqm.org; Figure 12.4
Adapted from A conceptual model of service quality and implications for
future research, Journal of Marketing, 49, Fall, pp. 41–50 (Parasuraman, A.
et al. 1985).
Text
p. 41 From Cookson C (2015) Guildford’s SSTL leads world in small satellite
supply, Financial Times, June 12; p. 48 From Ron Johnson (2011) What I
Learned Building the Apple Store, HBR Blog network, November 21 https://
hbr.org/2011/11/what-i-learned-building-the-ap; p. 54 From http://searchcio.
techtarget.com/definition/outsourcing; p. 57 from Marty Lariviere (2011) How
Apple spends on operations, The Operations Room, November 16; p. 66
from Definition from techtarget.com, searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/; p. 73
from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation; p. 75 from
(2012) iPhone was almost scrapped, says Apple design guru, The Times,
July 30; p. 388 from The EFQM Website, www.efqm.org; p. 401 from The
EFQM Website, www.efqm.org.
In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners of copyright

material, and we would appreciate any information that would enable us to
do so.
Photographs
(Key: b-bottom; c-centre; l-left; r-right; t-top)
123RF.com: Brent Hofacker 209, Cathy Yeulet 254, Cihan Demirok 6,

Deskcube 12, Dmitriy Shironosov 107, Guruxox 106, Kirill Cherezov 12, Oleksii
Nikolaiev 6, Sarah Maher 50, Wavebreak Media Ltd 106; Alamy Stock Photo:
Agnieszka Olek/Caia Image 288, Allsorts Stock Photo 273, Ammentorp
Photography ixl, BJ Warnick/Newscom 317, Bstar Images 26, Chris
Gascoigne-View 129, Dpa picture alliance xl, Equinox Imagery 23, Food
Collection viiir, Ian Dagnall 28, Ivan Vdovin 424, J. W. Alker/imageBROKE 133,

xxxi
Jeronimo Alba 107t, Juice Images168 341, Justin Kase z12z 166,
Lourens Smak 233, Meibion 37, Newscast Online Limited 5, Patti McConville 170,
Paul Doyle/Photofusion Picture Library 99, Phovoir xivl, RichardBakerRisk 307,
Robert Convery 277, RSBPhoto1 411, Santi Rodriguez 330, Tom Cockrem/Age
fotstock 69, Zuma Press, Inc. xiii; Getty Images: Manjunath Kiran/AFP 203;
Pearson Education: 6; REX: ITV/Shutterstock 87; Shutterstock: Just2shutter v,
Alpa Prod xi, xivr, Andrea Delbo 388, Andrewdesign 413, Benny Marty 57,
Bernatets photo 105, Bojan Milinkov 108, Casimiro PT 9, Christopher Halloran
xr, Cofkocof 6, Corine van Kapel 185, Cybrain 23, Deyan Georgiev 244,
Dragon Images ixr, Dreams Come True 107b, Dundanim 122, Ekaterina_Minaeva
19, Evgeniya Yantseva 81, Fedor Selivanov 63, Fizkes 380, Gorodenkoff viiil,
Hadrian 79, Herrndorff 106b, J2R 197, Jeramey Lende 261, Jokerpro 2,
Kozirsky 8, Krimar 168, Krivosheev Vitaly 324, Lightspring 118, Luis Santos 143,
Majeczka 237, Mariakraynova 74, Ministr-84 137, Mr Pics 311, Nacroba 48,
Nelen 294, NikolaJankovic 397, Pablo Dunas 383, Poznyakov 112, PreechaB
355, Rawpixel.com xiir, Robert Lucian Crusitu 55, Sheff 156, Sofiaworld 217,
Somchaij 181, Sorbis 345, Stockyimages 23, Stterryk 329, Studio_G 50,
Syda Productions xiil, Tatiana Liubimova 109, Testing 41, VectorsMarket 12,
Vibrant Image Studio 220, Wavebreakmedia vii, Zryzner 370;
All other images © Pearson Education

Operations
management
and performance
1
M01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845.indd 2 21/05/2018 09:38
Introduction
O
perations management is about how organizations create and
deliver services and products. Everything you wear, eat, sit on,
use, read or knock about on the sports field, and every treatment
you receive at the hospital, every service you expect in the shops
and every lecture you attend at university has been created by ‘operations’.
While the people who supervised their creation and delivery may not always
be called operations managers, that is what they really are. And that is what
this book is concerned with – the activities and decisions of those operations
managers who have made the services and products on which we all depend.
It is a hugely important activity for any type of organization. As well as
impacting the quality, cost and delivery of the services and products that we
consume, operations management can help or hinder how an organization
achieves its strategic ambitions, and how it fulfills its environmental
responsibilities. In this introductory chapter, we will examine what we mean by
‘operations management’, why it is important, how operations processes are
all similar yet different and what it is that operations managers do. Figure 1.1
shows the model of operations management that is developed in the chapter.
Key questions
What is operations management?
What is the input–transformation–output process?
Why is operations management important to an organization’s

performance?
What is the processes hierarchy?
How do operations and processes differ?
What do operations managers do?

4 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE
What is operations
management?
O
perations management is the activity of managing the resources
that create and deliver services and products. The operations
function is the part of the organization that is responsible for
this activity. Every organization has an operations function
because every organization creates services and/or products. Operations
managers are the people who have particular responsibility for managing
some, or all, of the resources and processes within the operations function.
However, not all types of organization will necessarily call the operations
function by this name. (Note that we also use the shorter terms ‘the
operation’ or ‘operations’ interchangeably with the ‘operations function’.)
Similarly, the operations manager could be called by some other name. For
example, he or she might be called the ‘fleet manager’ in a distribution
company, the ‘administrative manager’ in a hospital, or the ‘store manager’
in a supermarket. operations
principle
The Prêt A Manger example illustrates how important the operations function All organizations have
‘operations’ that
is for any company whose reputation depends on producing safe, high-
produce some mix of
quality, sustainable and profitable services or products. Its customers could
services and products.
choose to go to its competitors if Prêt’s operations failed to deliver excellent
levels of service or to produce attractive products, which is why it is
FIGURE 1.1 This chapter is an introduction to operations management and performance
DIRECT DEVELOP
TRANSFORMED Steering Improving the
RESOURCES operations operation’s
Materials and processes capabilities
Information
Customers
OPERATIONS
Output PERFORMANCE
OPERATIONS Societal,
Input resources products and
MANAGEMENT Strategic and
services
Operational
TRANSFORMING
RESOURCES DELIVER
Facilities DESIGN
Planning and
Staff Shaping
controlling
operations and
ongoing
processes
operations

5
Operations
in practice
Customer service at Prêt A Manger1
P
rêt A Manger is proud of food, but that’s of no interest to Examining customers’
its customer service. us. At the end of the day, we comments for improvement
‘We’d like to think we give whatever we haven’t sold ideas is a key part of weekly
react to our customers’ feelings to charity.’ Prêt A Manger management meetings, and of
(the good, the bad, the ugly) shops have their own kitchen the daily team briefs in each
with haste and absolute where fresh ingredients are shop. Moreover, staff at Prêt
sincerity’, its directors say. delivered every morning, collect bonuses for delivering
‘Prêt customers have the right with food prepared throughout outstanding customer service.
to be heard. Do call or email. the day. The team members Every week, each Prêt outlet is
Our UK managing director is serving on the tills at lunchtime visited by a secret shopper who
available if you would like to will have been making scores the shop on such
discuss Prêt with him. sandwiches in the kitchen that performance measures as speed
Alternatively, our CEO hasn’t morning. ‘We are determined of service, product availability
got much to do; hassle him!’ never to forget that our and cleanliness. In addition, the
hardworking people make all mystery shopper rates the
Prêt A Manger opened its first the difference. When they care, ‘engagement level’ of the staff;
shop in London and now has our business is sound. If they questions include, ‘did servers
over 350 shops spread across cease to care, our business connect with eye contact, a
the UK, Paris, the USA, Hong goes down the drain. In a retail smile and some polite remarks’?
Kong and Shanghai. It says that sector where high staff turnover Above a certain score, every
its secret is to focus continually is normal, we’re pleased to say team member receives an
on the quality of both its food our people are much more extra payment for every hour
and its service. It avoids the likely to stay around! We work worked; and if an individual is
chemicals and preservatives hard at building great teams. mentioned by the mystery
common in most ’fast’ food. We take our reward schemes shopper for providing
‘Many food retailers focus on and career opportunities very outstanding service, they get an
extending the shelf-life of their seriously.’ extra payment. ● ● ●
meticulous about monitoring its quality and ensuring that its processes
operate to precise standards. Of course, exactly what is involved in producing
products and services will depend to some extent on the type of organization
of which the operations function is a part. Table 1.1 shows some of the
activities of the operations function for various types of organization.

TABLE 1.1 Some activities of the operations function in various organizations
Internet service Fast food International aid Furniture

provider chain charity manufacturer
Maintain and Locate potential sites Provide aid and Procure appropriate
update hardware for restaurants development raw materials and
projects for components
recipients
Update software Provide processes Provide fast Make
and content and equipment to emergency sub-assemblies
produce burgers, etc. response when
needed
Respond to Maintain service Procure and store Assemble finished
customer queries quality emergency products
supplies
Implement new Develop, install and Be sensitive to Deliver products to
services maintain equipment local cultural norms customers
Ensure security of Reduce impact on Reduce environ-
customer data local area, and reduce mental impact of
packaging waste products and
processes
Operations can produce both

services and products
There is a common misperception that operations management is
concerned largely with producing physical products. Not so. In all
developed economies, services generate a far higher proportion of wealth
than manufacturing. Of the four organizations in Table 1.1, the furniture
manufacturer produces tangible products. The fast food chain produces
food but also serves it to its customers. The international aid charity does
not directly produce products but does distribute them and coordinate aid.
The internet service provider has no tangible product as such – it provides
intangible services. Yet they are all operations with (as we shall see later)
similar activities and objectives. Of course, there are some differences operations
between products and services. Products are usually tangible, whereas principle
services are activities or processes. Also, while most products can be Most operations
produce a mixture of
stored, at least for a short time, service only happens when it is consumed
tangible products and
or used. So, accommodation in a hotel room, for example, will perish if it is
intangible services.
not sold that night; a restaurant table will remain empty unless someone
uses it that evening.

7
In fact, most operations produce both services and products. Figure 1.2
shows a number of operations positioned in a spectrum, from ‘pure’ products
to ‘pure’ service. Crude oil producers are concerned almost exclusively with
the product from their oil wells. Aluminium smelters are similar, but might also
deliver some ‘facilitating’ services, such as technical advice. To an even
greater extent, machine tool manufacturers deliver facilitating services such as
technical advice and applications engineering. The restaurant is both a
manufacturer of meals and a provider of service. An information systems
provider may create software ‘products’, but primarily provides a service to its
customers. Certainly, a management consultancy, although it produces operations
reports and documents, is primarily a service provider. Finally, some pure principle
services solely create and deliver services – a psychotherapy clinic, for Whether an operation
example. produces tangible
products or intangible
Increasingly, the distinction between services and products is difficult to services is becoming
define and not particularly useful. Software has moved from being primarily increasingly
a product (sold on a disk) to an intangible download when sold over the irrelevant. In a sense,
internet, to an even less tangible rental or subscription service based ‘in the all operations
produce service for
cloud’. Indeed, one could argue that all operations are service providers
their customers.
that may create and deliver products as part of the offering to their
customers.
FIGURE 1.2 Most operations produce a mixture of products and services.

Some general examples are shown here, together with some of the operations
featured as ‘Operations in practice’ examples in this chapter
PURE PRODUCTS
EXAMPLES OPERATIONS IN PRACTICE

EXAMPLES FROM THIS CHAPTER
Crude oil production
Aluminium smelting LEGO
Specialist machine tool production
Restaurant Prêt A Manger
Information systems provider Médecins Sans Frontières
Management consultancy Torchbox
Psychotherapy clinic Formule 1 / Ski Vebier
PURE SERVICES

Operations
in practice
Torchbox: award-winning web designers2
W
e may take it for responsible for its technical we also like to think that we
granted, yet browsing development. ‘There are a provide an enjoyable and
websites as part of number of advantages about stimulating experience – both
your studies, your job or your being a relatively small for our customers’ development
leisure is an activity that we all operation’, he says. ‘We can be teams and for our staff too. High
do, probably every day, probably hugely flexible and agile, in standards of product and service
many times each day. All what is still a dynamic market. are important to us: our clients
organizations need a web But at the same time, we have want accessibility, usability,
presence if they want to sell the resources and skills to performance and security
products and services, interact provide a creative and embedded in their web designs,
with their customers or promote professional service. Any senior and of course they want things
their cause. And, not surprisingly, manager in a firm of our size delivered on time and on
there is a whole industry devoted cannot afford to be too budget. We are in a creative
to designing websites so that specialised. All of us here have industry that depends on
they have the right type of their own specific fast-moving technologies, but
impact. It has been one of the responsibilities; however, every that doesn’t mean that we can’t
fastest-growing industries in the one of us shares the overall also be efficient. We back
world. But it’s also a tough responsibility for the firm’s everything we do with a robust
business. Not every web design general development. We can feature-driven development
company thrives, or even also be clear and focused on process using a kanban project
survives beyond a couple of what type of work we want to management methodology that
years. To succeed, web do. Our ethos is important to us. helps us manage our obligations
designers need technology skills, We set out to work with clients to our clients.’
design capabilities, business who share our commitment to
awareness and operational environmental sustainability and The ‘kanban’ approach used by
professionalism. One that has responsible, ethical business the Torchbox web development
succeeded is Torchbox, an practice; we take our work, and teams originated from car
independently-owned digital that of our clients, seriously. If manufacturers such as Toyota
agency for the charity, non-profit you’re an arms dealer, you can (and is fully explained in
and higher education sectors, safely assume that we’re not Chapter 10). ‘Using sound
with offices in Oxfordshire and going to be interested.’ operations management
Bristol in the UK and Philadelphia techniques helps us constantly to
in the USA. Founded back in Nevertheless, straightforward deliver value to our clients’, says
2000, it now employs over 50 operational effectiveness is also Tom Dyson. ‘We like to think that
people, providing ‘high-quality, essential to Torchbox’s business. our measured and controlled
cost-effective and ethical ‘We know how to make sure that approach to handling and
solutions for its clients’. our projects run not only on time controlling work helps ensure
and to budget’, says Olly that every hour we work
Co-founder and technical Willans, also a co-founder and produces an hour’s worth of value
director Tom Dyson has been the firm’s creative director, ‘but for our clients and for us.’ ● ● ●

9
Operations
in practice
MSF operations provide medical aid to people in danger3
M
édecins Sans action without superior approval, MSF select personnel,
Frontières (MSF) is an operations management. As organize resources and secure
independent MSF says, it must be able to funds. Initiation involves
humanitarian organization react to any crisis with ‘fast sending equipment and
providing medical aid where it response, efficient logistics resources to the area. Thanks to
is most needed and raising systems and efficient project their pre-planned processes,
awareness of the plight of the management’. specialized kits and the
people it helps around the emergency stores, MSF can
world. Its core work takes place MSF response procedures are distribute material and
in crisis situations – armed continuously being developed equipment within 48 hours,
conflicts, epidemics, famines to ensure that they reach those ready for the response team to
and natural disasters. It delivers most in need as quickly as start work as soon as it arrives.
both medical aid and material possible. The process has five Once the critical medical needs
aid (including food, shelter, phases: proposal, assessment, have been met, MSF begins to
blankets, etc.). Each year, MSF initiation, running the project close the project with a gradual
sends doctors, nurses, and closing. The information withdrawal of staff and
logisticians, water-and- that prompts a possible mission equipment. All of which
sanitation experts, can come from governments, depends on an efficient
administrators and other the international community, logistics system working from
professionals to work alongside humanitarian organizations or MSF’s four logistical centres
around thousands of locally MSF teams already present in based in Europe and East
hired staff. It is one of the most the region. Once the Africa, plus stores of emergency
admired and effective relief information has been checked, materials in Central America
organisations in the world. But MSF experts carry out a quick and East Asia where they
no amount of fine intentions evaluation and send a proposal purchase, test and store
can translate into effective back to the MSF office. After equipment. ● ● ●
Operations management in
not-for-profit organizations
Terms such as ‘business’, ‘competitiveness’ and ‘markets’, which are used in
this text, are usually associated with companies in the for-profit sector. Yet
operations management is also relevant to organizations whose purpose is
not primarily to earn profits. Managing the operations in an animal welfare
charity, hospital, research organization or government department is
essentially the same as in commercial organizations. These operations have to
create and deliver service and products, invest in technology, contract out

some of their activities, devise performance measures, improve their

operations performance and so on. However, the objectives of not-for-profit
organizations may be more complex, involving a mixture of political,
economic, social or environmental objectives. Nevertheless, the vast majority
of the topics covered in this text are relevant, even if some terms may have to
be adapted.
What is the input–

transformation–output
process?
A
ll operations create and deliver service and products by changing
inputs into outputs using an ‘input–transformation–output’
process. Figure 1.3 shows this general transformation process
model. Put simply, operations are processes that take in a set of
input resources that are used to transform something, or are transformed
themselves, into outputs of services and products. And although all
operations conform to this general model, they differ in the nature of their
specific inputs and outputs. So, if you stand far enough away from a hospital
or a car plant, they might look very similar, but move closer and clear
FIGURE 1.3 All operations are input–transformation–output processes
TRANSFORMED
RESOURCES
Materials
Information
Customers
OPERATIONS
Output PERFORMANCE
THE TRANSFORMATION Societal,
Input resources products and
PROCESS Strategic and
services
Operational
TRANSFORMING
RESOURCES
Facilities
Staff

11
differences do start to emerge. One is a service operation delivering

‘services’ that change the physiological or psychological condition of operations
patients, the other is a manufacturing operation creating and delivering principle
‘products’. What is inside each operation will also be different. The hospital All processes have
contains diagnostic, care and therapeutic processes, whereas the motor inputs of
vehicle plant contains metal-forming machinery and assembly processes. transforming and
transformed
Perhaps the most important difference between the two operations,
resources that they
however, is the nature of their inputs. The hospital transforms the customers
use to create
themselves. The patients form part of the input to, and the output from, the products and
operation. The vehicle plant transforms steel, plastic, cloth, tyres and other services.
materials into vehicles.
Inputs to the process

One set of inputs to any operation’s processes is the transformed resources.
These are the resources that are treated, transformed or converted in the
process. They are usually a mixture of the following:
★ Materials Operations that process materials could do so to transform

the materials’ physical properties (shape or composition, for example).
Most manufacturing operations are like this. Other operations process
materials to change their location (parcel delivery companies, for
example). Some, like retail operations, do so to change the possession
of the materials. Finally, some operations store materials, such as
warehouses.
★ Information Operations that process information could do so to

transform the informational properties (that is, the purpose or form
of the information); accountants do this. Some change the
possession of the information – for example, market research
companies sell information. Some store the information, such as
archives and libraries. Finally, some operations, such as
telecommunication companies, change the location of the
information.
★ Customers Operations that process customers might change their

physical properties: for example, hairdressers or cosmetic surgeons.
Some, like hotels, store (or more politely accommodate) customers.
Airlines and mass rapid transport systems transform the location of their
customers, while hospitals transform their physiological state. Some are
concerned with transforming their psychological state – for example, operations
entertainment services such as television, radio and theme parks. But principle
customers are not always simple ‘passive’ items to be processed. They Transformed resource
can also play a more active part in many operations and processes. For inputs to a process
can be materials,
example, they create the atmosphere in a restaurant; they provide the
information or
stimulating environment in learning groups in education. When customers
customers.
play this role, it is usually referred to as ‘co-production’ because the
customer plays a vital part in the provision of the product/service offering.

Some operations have inputs of materials and information and customers, but
usually one of these is dominant. For example, a bank devotes part of its
energies to producing printed statements by processing inputs of material,
but no one would claim that a bank is a printer. The bank also is concerned
with processing inputs of customers at its branches and contact centres.
However, most of the bank’s activities are concerned with processing inputs of
information about its customers’ financial affairs. As customers, we may be
unhappy with badly printed statements and we may be unhappy if we are not
treated appropriately in the bank. But if the bank makes errors in our financial
transactions, we suffer in a far more fundamental way. Table 1.2 gives
examples of operations, with their dominant transformed resources.
The other set of inputs to any operations process is the transforming

resources. These are the resources that act upon the transformed resources.
There are two types that form the ‘building blocks’ of all operations:
★ facilities the buildings, equipment, plant and process technology of the

operation;
★ staff the people who operate, maintain, plan and manage the
operation. (Note we use the term ‘staff’ to describe all the people in
the operation, at any level.)
The exact nature of both facilities and staff will differ between operations.
To a five-star hotel, its facilities consist mainly of ‘low-tech’ buildings,
furniture and fittings. To a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, its facilities are
TABLE 1.2 Dominant transformed resource inputs of various operations
Predominantly processing Predominantly processing Predominantly processing

inputs of materials inputs of information inputs of customer
All manufacturing operations Accountants Hairdressers

Mining companies Bank headquarters Hotels
Retail operations Market research companies Hospitals
Warehouses Social media operations Mass rapid transports
Postal services News services Theatres
Container shipping lines University research units Theme parks
Trucking companies Telecoms companies Dentists

13
‘high-tech’ nuclear generators and sophisticated electronic equipment.

Staff will also differ between operations. Most staff employed in a factory
assembling domestic refrigerators may not need a very high level of
technical skill. In contrast, most staff employed by an accounting company
are, hopefully, highly skilled in their own particular ‘technical’ skill
(accounting). Yet, although skills vary, all staff can make a contribution. An
assembly worker who consistently misassembles refrigerators will dissatisfy
customers and increase costs just as surely as an accountant who cannot operations
add up. The balance between facilities and staff also varies. Microchip principle
manufacturers, such as Samsung or Intel, will have significant investment in All processes have
physical facilities. A single chip fabrication plant can cost in excess of $5 transforming
billion, so operations managers will spend a lot of their time managing resources of facilities
(equipment,
their facilities. Conversely, a management consultancy firm depends
technology, etc.) and
largely on the quality of its staff. Here, operations management is largely
people.
concerned with the development and deployment of consultant skills and
knowledge.
CUSTOMERS
Customers may be an input to many operations, but they are also the reason
for their existence. Without customers, there would be no operation. So, it is
critical that operations managers are aware of customers’ current and
potential needs. It is also why most operations put considerable effort into
assessing how customers view their offerings and bringing what is sometimes
known as the ‘voice of the customer’ into their operation.
Why is operations
management important
to an organization’s
performance?
I
t is no exaggeration to view operations management as being able to
either ‘make or break’ any business. The operations function is large and,
in most businesses, represents the bulk of its assets and the majority of its
people. But, more than this, the operations function gives any
organization the ability to compete by providing the ability to respond to
customers and by developing the capabilities that will keep it ahead of its
competitors in the future. When things go wrong in operations, whether it be
the recall of a faulty product, a customer being injured on a theme park ride
or the failure to protect against a cyber-attack, the financial and reputational
damage can last for years.

Performance at three levels

The idea of operations ‘performance’ is not a straightforward or simple
concept. Several measures are always needed to convey a realistic overview
of the various aspects of performance. Also, performance can be assessed at
different levels. Here we will look at how operations can judge their
performance at three levels:
★ the broad, societal level, using the idea of the ‘triple bottom line’;
★ the strategic level – how an operation can contribute to the

organization’s overall strategy;
★ the operational level, using the five operations ‘performance

objectives’.
These three levels of operations performance are illustrated in Figure 1.4.
OPERATIONS PERFORMANCE AT A SOCIETAL LEVEL

No operation exists, or performs, in isolation. Its decisions affect a whole
variety of ‘stakeholders’. (Stakeholders are the people and groups who have
FIGURE 1.4 Three levels of operations performance
Planet
Sustain–
Societal level –
ability
operations
sustainability People Profit
Learning
Risk OPERATIONS Capital

Strategic level – STRATEGIC IMPACT
operations strategic
impact
Cost Revenue
Quality
Speed
Operational level –
Dependability
operations performance
Flexibility
objectives
Cost

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The use of metals in America falls into three stages. The
peripheral and backward areas, such as Patagonia and California,
and those parts of the Tropical Forest in which nature had denied a
supply and remoteness had shut off trade, did wholly without metals.
In the areas of medium advancement, like the Northwest,
Southwest, and the ancient Mound Builder region of the Ohio Valley,
native copper was beaten out into sheets, trimmed, bent, gouged,
and engraved. It was not smelted from ore nor cast. Its treatment
was thus essentially by stone age processes. Gold, silver, and other
metals were not used; iron only sporadically when it could be
obtained in the native metallic state from a fallen meteorite. The
supply even of copper was rarely large. It flowed in trade, much like
precious stones among ourselves, to the wealthier groups of nations
able to part with their own products in exchange for this substance
prized by them for jewelry and insignia but rarely made into tools.
The third stage is that of true metallurgical processes, and is
confined to the three Middle American areas. Here, copper, gold,
silver, and so far as they were available tin and platinum, were
sought after and worked. Copper at any rate was extracted from its
ores by smelting; all the known metals were fused and cast, both in
permanent molds and by the method of melting wax out of a single-
time mold. Wire was beaten or drawn out; gold leaf and acid plating
practised; and welding, hardening by hammering, and self-soldering
were known. Alloys were made: copper-tin bronze in Bolivia and the
south Peruvian highland, whence its use later spread north, perhaps
being carried as far as Mexico (§ 108); copper-arsenic bronze and
copper-silver alloy on the Peruvian coast; copper-gold in Colombia
and Mexico; copper-lead bronze in Mexico.
Nowhere, however, was metal the standard material for tools,
which continued to be mostly of stone or wood. Metallic tools and
utensils, especially knives and axes, were not altogether rare in the
bronze region of South America. The superior hardness of bronze as
compared with copper no doubt proved a stimulus in this direction.
But Maya temple-cities were built with stone tools, and the Aztecs
cut and fought with obsidian. In general, metal remained treasure or
ornament. There were not even the beginnings of an iron culture
anywhere in the hemisphere.
In the larger outlines, the history of American metallurgy is thus
simple enough, as something developed late and never diffused
beyond the central region of intensive culture. As to the sequence of
use of the several metals and processes, on the other hand, rather
little has been ascertained. It seems that in these matters South
America might have been somewhat in advance of Mexico, both in
time and in degree of attainments. The age of the metallurgical arts
in Middle America must not be underestimated. In spite of their
relative recency, they can hardly have been less than several
thousand years old.
197. Calendars and Astronomy

The earliest stage of anything like time reckoning in America was
what might be called the descriptive moon series. The return of the
seasons marked the year. Within the year, rude track was kept of the
passage of time by following a series of “natural” months or lunations
named after events, such as “heavy cold,” “flying geese,” “deer
rutting,” or “falling leaves.” No one cared and perhaps no one knew
how many days there were in a moon, let alone in a year. No one
knew his age, nor, as a rule, how many years ago any event had
taken place. It is a mark of pretty high civilization when people know
how old they are.
From the point of view of accuracy, the moon series calendar left
much to be desired, since there are something over twelve and
considerably under thirteen visible lunations in a solar or seasonal
year. Some tribes allowed twelve moons, others thirteen, in some
different individuals disagreed. Whenever the geese actually flew,
debates were settled: it was flying geese month, and every one went
on with the series from there. If he had happened to get a moon
ahead or behind, he accepted the event as a correction.
The moon series calendar was used by the majority of tribes in the
United States and Canada.
Somewhat more advanced is the solstitial moon series. This takes
one of the solstices, usually the one just before our Christmas, as
the fixed beginning and end of the year. The days are noticeably
shortest then. Some tribes went farther and employed landmarks to
observe the place on the horizon of the sun’s rising. Until the solstice
this place shifts daily southward, after it northward. Also, the
noonday shadows fall longest at the winter solstice. Here then was a
point in the year which was always the same, whereas the geese
might fly or the leaves fall early one year and late the next. The
definiteness thus obtained was followed up by numbering the moons
instead of describing them, or by recognizing both solstices as a
frame within which there fell two parallel groups of six moons, or of
five moons and a slightly longer solstitial period.
This method also did not solve the really difficult problem of
making twelve lunations and an irregular fraction fit automatically
and permanently into the solar year; and provision for counting days
and years was still wholly lacking. Yet the first beginnings of exact
astronomical observations had been made and were utilized to give
the year and its subdivisions a certain fixity.
The occurrence of the simple solstitial calendar in North America is
significant. It occurs in the Southwest and Northwest: that is, in the
area most directly influenced by the higher Mexican center, and the
area which made most progress independently of Mexico.[29]
These two stages of the descriptive and the solstitial moon series
were long ago passed through in southern Mexico and a need felt for
a more precise time reckoning. No calendar can either serve
accuracy or cover long periods which fails to concern itself with the
exact arithmetical relation of its smaller units to its larger ones: the
number of days in the month and year, for instance. This concern,
would not be difficult if the relations were simple; but nature has put
something over 29½ days into a lunation, something under 365¼
days and a little over 12⅓ lunations into the year. The first step
ahead was undoubtedly a day count, as previously the numbering of
the moons had marked an advance over their descriptive naming.
The day count must have revealed the discrepancy between the
actual numbers and those assumed for the larger units, such as 30
and 360. A great advance was therefore made when the natural
lunation was wholly abandoned and artificial units substituted. The
Mayas, or possibly some previous and forgotten people, invented a
“month” of twenty days, probably because they counted by twenties
instead of tens. Eighteen of these months, with five added leap days,
made a 365-day year. Thirteen 20-day months made another and
wholly arbitrary period of 260 days, which the Aztecs, who borrowed
the system, called tonalamatl.[30] The tonalamatl had no basis in
nature or astronomy and was a pure invention: a reckoning device. It
ran its course concurrently with the year as two wheels of 260 and
365 cogs might engage. The same cogs would meet again at the
end of 73 and 52 revolutions respectively, that is, 365 and 260
divided by 5, their highest common factor. At the end of each 52
years, therefore, the beginning of the year and of the tonalamatl
again coincided, giving a “calendar round” of that duration. This 52-
year period is the one by which the Aztecs dated.
The Mayas, however, did not content themselves with the 52-year
period, but reckoned time by katuns of 20 and cycles of 400 years.
[31] The dates on Maya inscriptions are mostly from their ninth cycle,
with some from the end of the eighth and beginning of the tenth. This
period corresponds approximately to the first six centuries of the
Christian era. The beginning of the first cycle would fall more than
3,000 years before Christ. There is no reason to believe that this
time reckoning began then. It is more likely that a little before the
time of Christ the Mayas perfected this system of chronology and
gave it dignity by imagining some seven or eight cycles to have
passed between the beginning of the world, or some other
mythological event, and the actual commencement of their record.
From the close of their eighth cycle, however, the dates are
apparently contemporary with the events to which they refer.
This system is so elaborate that it could scarcely have been
devised and adopted all at once. There must have been a time
lasting some centuries, perhaps over a thousand years, previous to
the Christian era, during which the first day count was being
elaborated and perfected into the classical calendar of the early
post-Christian Maya monuments.
This calendar did not exhaust the astronomical and mathematical
accomplishments of the Mayas. They ascertained that eight solar
years correspond almost exactly with five “years” or apparent
revolutions (584 days) of the planet Venus, and that 65 Venus years
of a total of 37,960 days coincide with two calendar rounds of 52
solar years. They knew that their 365-day year was a fraction of a
day short of the true year, determined the error rather exactly, and,
while they did not interpolate any leap days, they computed the
necessary correction at 25 days in 104 years or two calendar
rounds. This is greater accuracy than has been attained by any
calendar other than our modern Gregorian one. As regards the
moon, they brought its revolutions into accord with their day count
with an error of only one day in 300 years. These are high
attainments, and for a people without astronomical instruments
involved accurate and protracted observations as well as calculatory
ability.
Much less is known of South American calendars; but, like the
dwindling away from Maya to Aztec to Pueblo and finally to the
rudiments of the descriptive moon series of the backward tribes in
the northern continent, so there is discernible a retardation of
progress as the Maya focus is left behind toward the south. The
most developed calendar in South America was that of the Chibchan
peoples of Colombia. Beyond them, the Inca, in their greater empire,
got along with a system intermediate in its degree of development
between the Aztec and the Pueblo ones. In the Tropical Forest and
Patagonian areas there do not seem to have been more than moon
name series comparable to those of peripheral North America.
198. Writing
Related to calendar and mathematics in its origin was writing,
which passed out of the stage of pictographs and simple ideograms
only in the Mexican area. The Aztecs used the rebus method (§
130), but chiefly for proper names, as in tribute lists and the like. The
Mayas had gone farther. Their glyphs are highly worn down or
conventionalized pictures, true symbols; often indeed combinations
of symbols. They mostly remain illegible to us, and while they appear
to contain phonetic elements, these do not seem to be the dominant
constituents. The Maya writing thus also did not go beyond the
mixed or transitional stage. The Chibcha may have had a less
advanced system of similar type, though the fact that no remains of it
have survived argues against its having been of any considerable
development. The Peruvians did not write at all. They scarcely even
used simple pictography. Their records were wholly oral, fortified by
mnemonic devices known as quipus, series of knotted strings. These
were useful in keeping account of numbers, but could of course not
be read by any one but the knotter of the strings: a given knot might
stand equally for ten llamas, ten men, ten war clubs, or ten jars of
maize. The remainder of South America used no quipus, and while
occasional pictographs have been found on rocks, they seem to
have been less developed, as something customary, than among the
North American tribes. All such primitive carvings or paintings were
rather expressions of emotion over some event, concrete or spiritual,
intelligible to the maker of the carving and perhaps to his friends,
than records intended to be understood by strangers or future
generations.
Connected with the fact that the highest development of American
writing took place in southern Mexico, is another: it was only there
that books were produced. These were mostly ritualistic or
astrological, and were painted on long folded strips of maguey fiber
paper or deerskin. They were probably never numerous, and
intelligible chiefly to certain priests or officials.
199. The Several Provincial Developments:

Mexico
Since the calendrical and graphic achievements enumerated,
together with temple sculpture, lie in the fields of science,
knowledge, and art, and since they show a definite localization in
southern Mexico, in fact point to an origin in the Maya area, they
almost compel the recognition of this culture center as having
constituted the peak of civilization in the New World.
This localization establishes at least some presumption that it was
there rather than in South America that the beginnings of cultural
progress, the emergence out of primitive uniformity, occurred. To be
sure, it is conceivable that agriculture and other inventions grew up
in Andean South America, were transported to Mexico, for some
reason gained a more rapid development there, until, under the
stimulus of this forward movement, further discoveries were made
which the more steadily and slowly progressing Peruvian motherland
of culture failed to equal. Conjectures of this sort cannot yet be
confirmed or disproved. Civilization was sufficiently advanced in both
Mexico and Peru to render it certain that these first beginnings now
referred to, lay some thousands of years back. In the main, Mexican
and Peruvian cultures were nearly on an equality, and in their
fundamentals they were sufficiently alike, and sufficiently different
from all Old World cultures, to necessitate the belief that they are,
broadly, a common product.
Still, the superiority of the Mexicans in the sciences and arts
carries a certain weight. If to this superiority are added the
indications that maize and cotton were first cultivated in the south
Mexican area, in other words, that the fundamentals of American
agriculture and loom-weaving seem more likely to have been
developed there than elsewhere; and if further the close association
of pottery with agriculture throughout the western hemisphere is
borne in mind, it seems likely that the seat of the first forward
impetus out of the wholly primitive status of American culture is to be
sought in the vicinity of southern Mexico.
200. The Andean Area

The triumphs of Mexican civilization were in the spiritual or
intellectual field; those of Peru lay rather in practical and material
matters. The empire of the Incas was larger and much more
rigorously organized and controlled, their roads longer and more
ambitious as engineering undertakings, their masonry more massive;
their mining operations and metal working more extensive. The
domestication of the llama and the cultivation of certain food plants
such as the potato gave their culture an added stability on the
economic side.
The extent of the Inca empire, and of the smaller states that no
doubt preceded it, was of influence in shaping Andean culture.
Organized and directed efforts of large numbers of men were made
available to a greater degree than ever before in the New World. The
empire also operated in the direction of more steady industry, but its
close organization and routine probably helped dwarf the higher
flights of the mind. In the quality of their fabrics, jewelry, stone fitting,
and road building, as well as in exactness of governmental
administration, the Peruvians excelled. It is remarkable how little,
with all their progress in these directions, they seem to have felt the
need of advance in knowledge or art for its own sake. They thought
with their hands rather than their heads. They practised skill and
inhibited imagination.
The Incas, like the Aztecs in Mexico, represent merely the
controlling nation during the last stage of development. Their specific
culture was the local one of the highlands about Cuzco. Prehistoric
remains from the coast both north and south, and in the Andean
highland southward of Cuzco in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca and the
adjacent parts of Bolivia, demonstrate that this Inca or Cuzco culture
was only the latest of several forms of Andean culture. At the time of
Inca dominion, the great temple of Tiahuanaco near Lake Titicaca
was already a ruin. Pottery of a type characteristic of the Tiahuanaco
district, and similar in style to its stone carvings, has been found in
remote parts of the Andean area, thus indicating the district as an
early center of diffusion. Other centers, more or less
contemporaneous, some of them perhaps still earlier, can be
distinguished along the coast. In short, the inner history of the
Andean region is by no means summed up in that picture of it which
the Inca domination at the time of discovery presented. New
scientifically conducted excavations throughout the area will no
doubt unravel further the succession of local cultural developments.
201. Colombia
The Chibchas of Colombia, the intermediate member of the three-
linked Middle American chain, fell somewhat, but not very far, below
the Mexicans and Peruvians in their cultural accomplishments. Their
deficiency lay in their lack of specific developments. They do not
show a single cultural element of importance peculiar to themselves.
They chewed coca, slept in hammocks, sat on low chairs or stools;
but these are traits common to a large part of South America.
Consequently the absence or weak development of these traits in
Mexico is no indication of any superiority of the Chibchas as such.
The great bulk of Colombian culture was a substratum which
underlay the higher local developments of Mexico and Peru; and this
substratum—varied agriculture, temples, priesthood, political
organization—the Chibchas possessed without notable gaps.
Whatever elements flowed from Mexico to Peru or from Peru to
Mexico at either an early or a late period, therefore probably passed
through them. In isolated matters they may have added their
contribution. On the whole, though, their rôle must have been that of
sharers, recipients, and transmitters in the general Middle American
civilization.
202. The Tropical Forest

The line of demarcation between the narrow Pacific slope of South
America and the broad Atlantic drainage is sharp, especially in the
region of Peru. The Cordilleran stretch is arid along the coast, sub-
arid in the mountains, unforested in all its most characteristic
portions. East of the crest of the Andes, on the other hand, the
rainfall is heavy, often excessive, the jungle thick, communication
difficult and largely dependent on the waterways. Even the
Caucasian has made but the slightest impression on the virgin
Amazonian forest at its densest. The Inca stretched his empire a
thousand miles north and a thousand to the south with comparative
ease, establishing uniformity and maintaining order. He did not
penetrate the Tropical Forest a hundred miles. At his borders, where
the forest began, lived tribes as wild and shy as any on earth. The
Andean civilization would have had to be profoundly modified to
flourish in the jungle, and the jungle had too little that was attractive
to incite to the endeavor. Some thousands of years more, perhaps,
might have witnessed an attempt to open up the forest and make it
accessible. Yet when one recalls how little has been done in this
direction by Caucasian civilization in four centuries, and how
superficial its exploitation for rubber and like products has been, it is
clear that such a task would have been accomplished by the
Peruvians only with the utmost slowness.
Yet various culture elements filtered over the Andes into the
hidden lowlands. The Pan’s pipe, for instance, an element common
to the Andes and the Forest, is likely to have originated in the higher
center. Elements like the blowgun, the hammock, the chair or stool,
are typical of the northern Forest and Antilles, and may have
infiltrated these areas from Colombia or even been locally
developed. The same is true of the cultivation of the cassava or
manioc plant, from which we draw our tapioca. This, the great staple
of the Forest region, is better adapted to its humid climate than is
maize, which flourishes best in a sub-arid environment. Cassava
may therefore be looked upon as perhaps a local substitute for
maize, evolved as a domesticated plant under the stimulus of an
already established maize agriculture. Its cultivation has evidently
spread through the Forest region from a single source, since the
specialized processes of preparing it for food—the untreated root is
poisonous—are relatively uniform wherever it is grown. Maize is not
unknown in the area, but less used than cassava wherever the forest
is dense.
A characteristic quality of those Forest culture-traits which are not
common ancient American inheritance, is that, whether of Middle
American or local origin, they are detached fragments, particular
devices having little or no relation to one another, like the hammock
and the blowgun, or cassava and the Pan’s pipe. Original
fundamental processes, higher accomplishments necessitating order
or organization of effort, are lacking. This is precisely the condition
which might be anticipated when a culture too low to take over a
higher one in its entirety had borrowed from it here and there, as the
Forest peoples undoubtedly have borrowed from Middle America.
Three districts within the Forest area have previously been
mentioned (§ 174) as regions in which the forest becomes open or
disappears, and whose type of culture is locally modified: Guiana,
eastern Brazil, and the Chaco. Of these the Brazilian highlands
constitute an area of unusually deficient culture. In parts of them
agriculture and pottery seem to be lacking. These highlands are
perhaps to be construed as an interior marginal region representing
an isolation within the greater Forest area. Had these highlands
been in juxtaposition to the Andean area, or even situated near it,
they would presumably have been able to take over Andean culture
elements more successfully than the low-lying Forest, and would
then have stood out from this through superiorities instead of
absences. Their remoteness, however, enabled the intervening
Forest region to shut them off from Andean influences of
consequence, while giving to them only part of its own low cultural
content.
The peculiarities of the Chaco are due to the opposite reason. The
Chaco is a partly open country at the southerly extremity of the
Forest. It lies close to the foot of the Andes where these broaden out
into the southern Bolivian plateau. It also shades off into the treeless
Patagonian region. It is thus open to influences from three sides, and
its culture appears to represent a mixture of the three adjacent ones.
The basis would seem to be the culture of the Tropical Forest, but
definite Patagonian as well as Andean elements are traceable.
203. Patagonia
Patagonia is par excellence the peripheral region of South
America, culturally as well as geographically. As regards civilization,
this is true in the highest degree at the extreme tip of the continent
about Tierra del Fuego. Many of the most widely spread South
American culture traits being lacking here, there is a curious
resemblance to the northerly tribes of North America.
Yet even this culturally disinherited area is not without a few local
developments of relatively high order. The most striking is the plank-
built canoe of the south Chilean archipelago. The skill to carpenter
such boats was exercised in only one other region in the
hemisphere; the Santa Barbara Islands of California. Curiously
enough the latter is also a district of comparatively backward culture.
In any event this built-up canoe of the rude people of the extreme
south contrasts strikingly with the lack of any real boats among the
advanced nations in the Andean area. The moral would seem to be
that it is speculative to base much theory or explanation on any
single culture trait.
Of other elements specific to the Patagonian region, there might
be mentioned coiled basketry (§ 104) and the bolas. This is a
hunting weapon of three stones attached to ropes swung so as to
wind around the neck or legs of game. Except at the extreme south,
Patagonian culture was profoundly modified by the introduction of
the horse, which soon after the arrival of the Spaniards multiplied on
the open plains. The horse enlarged the ability of the Patagonian
tribes to take game, especially in the Pampas in the north, increased
their wealth, and strengthened their warlike interests. The same
change occurred in the Chaco.
204. North America: the Southwest

In North America the Southwest area lies at the point where the
continent spreads out fanwise. It is therefore the gate or transforming
station through which Mexican influences flowed on their way to the
various areas beyond. Whatever of Mexican culture the Pueblos
received and accepted, they worked over before they passed it on.
This reconstitution gave the culture a new color. Nearly every one on
first coming in contact with Southwestern culture has been struck
with its distinctive cast. Analysis, however, shows few intrinsic
elements peculiar to it. The novelty as compared with Mexico lies in
a different emphasis or a new arrangement of the elements.
Masonry, for instance, is used for dwellings instead of temples. Town
life is well developed, but the political organization which
accompanies it in Mexico is much weaker in the Southwest.
205. The Southeast

Superficially, Southeastern culture appears different from
Southwestern. Much of the seeming difference is due to the wooded
and rather humid environment; another portion is accounted for by
the failure of the Southeastern tribes to build in stone. But there are
differences that go deeper, such as the poverty of Southeastern
ritual and the comparative strength of political organization. The
religious dwarfing may be attributed to greater distance from Mexico.
The precise routes of diffusion into the Southeast are not wholly
clear. The culture center of the area lay on or near the lower
Mississippi—sufficiently close to the Southwest. Yet the district which
is now Texas intervened, and this was one of distinctly lower culture,
largely occupied by tribes with Plains affiliation. Theoretically it would
have been possible for cultural elements to travel from Mexico along
the Texas coast to the Southeast. Yet what little is known about the
tribes of this coast indicates that they were backward. A third
possibility for the transmission of culture was from the Antilles,
especially by the short voyage from Cuba or the Bahamas to the
point of Florida. Some connections by this route almost certainly took
place. But they seem to have affected chiefly the peninsula of
Florida, and to have brought less into the Southeast as a whole than
reached it overland.
206. The Northern Woodland

The Northeast was historically dependent on the Southeast as this
was on the Southwest and the Southwest on Mexico. It was thus the
third stage removed from the origins in Middle America. It was
inferior to the Southeast in several points. Pottery was cruder, clans
mostly patrilinear instead of matrilinear, town and tribal life less
organized. Some exceptions within the Northeast can be traced to
direct influences or migrations from the Southeast. The matrilinear
and confederated Iroquoian tribes of the Northeast, for instance,
were linguistic relatives of the Cherokee in the Southeast.
A similar movement of culture or peoples, or both, occurred at an
earlier time and has left as its remains the mounds of the Ohio valley
—local equivalents of the Mexican temple pyramid. Some of these
are of surprising bulk, and others have the form of animals.
Associated with them are earthwork fortifications which indicate
coherent populational groups of some size. The industries of the
Mound Builders were also on a somewhat higher level, especially as
regards artistic quality, than those of the historic tribes of the region.
In detail the Mound Builder culture represents many interesting
points that remain to be cleared up. In the large, however, it was a
temporary local extension of the Southeastern culture, from which
flowed its occasional resemblances to Middle America.
207. Plains Area

The Plains area is adjacent to the Southwest, but a review of its
culture elements shows that a surprisingly small fragment of
Southwestern civilization penetrated it. The most advanced Plains
tribes seem rather to have been in dependence on the Southeast.
This is probably to be explained as the result of a flow of culture up
the more immediate Mississippi valley. The western Plains, close to
the Rocky mountains, were sparsely populated in aboriginal times,
and life there must have been both unsettled and narrow in its
scope. Contacts between these western Plains and the Southwest
no doubt existed, but presumably the Plains tribes were too
backward, and too engrossed in their own special adaptation to their
environment, to profit much by what they might have borrowed from
the Pueblos.
Certain specific culture traits were developed on the Plains. The
nearly exclusive dependence on buffalo stunted the culture in some
directions, but led to the originating of other features. Thus the Plains
tribes came to live in tipis—tents made of the skin of the buffalo—
pitched these in regular order in the camp circle, and traveled with
the bundled tents lashed to a “travois” frame dragged by dogs. While
they never accomplished anything notable in the way of
confederating themselves into larger stable groups, nor even in
effective warfare, they did develop a system of “coup counting” or
military honors which loomed large in their life.
During the seventeenth century the horse was introduced or
became abundant on the Plains. It reached the Indians from Spanish
sources, as is shown by their adopting modifications of Spanish
riding gear and methods of mounting. The horse gave them an
extension of range and a greater sureness of food supply; more
leisure also resulted. The consequence was a general upward swing
of the culture, which put it, as regards outward appearances, on a
par with the cultures of other areas that in purely aboriginal times
had outranked the Plains. This development due to the horse is in
many ways comparable to that which occurred in the Patagonian
area, but with one difference. The Patagonians possessed a meager
culture. The introduction of the horse resulted in their hybridizing two
elements so dissimilar as their own low civilization and the
Caucasian one. The Plains culture had a somewhat fuller content.
The Plains tribes were also protected from intimate Caucasian
contacts for nearly two centuries, during which they were able to use
the new and valuable acquisition of the horse to enrich and deepen
their culture without essentially remodeling it. Horse transport was
substituted for dog transport, tipis became more commodious and
comfortable, the camp circle spread out larger, more property could
be accumulated. Warfare continued to be carried on as a species of
game with military honors as prizes, but now provided the added
incentive of substantial booty of herds easily driven off.
208. The Northwest Coast

The North Pacific coast is the most anomalous of the North
American areas, and its history is in many ways unique. It is nearer
in miles to the Southwest and Mexico than is the Northeast, yet
agriculture and pottery never reached it. At the same time the
Northwest culture is obviously more than a marginal one. People
with so elaborate a social organization as these Coast tribes, and
with so outstanding an art, were certainly not peripheral dependents.
The explanation is that much of the development of culture in the
Middle American region never became established in the Northwest,
but that this area manifested a vitality and initiative of its own which
led to the independent development of a number of important culture
constituents. The art is in the main of such local origin, since it does
not affiliate closely with the art of other areas. Very important too was
the stress increasingly laid on wealth in the Northwest. Society was
stratified in terms of it. The potlatch, a combination of feast, religious
ceremony, and distribution of property, is another peculiar outcome
of the same tendency. The use of dentalium shells as a sort of
standard currency is a further manifestation. The working of wood
was carried farther than anywhere else. Several traits, such as the
solstitial calendar and matrilinear clans, which the Northwest Coast
shares with other areas, have already been cited as probable
instances of independent evolution on the spot.
All in all, then, it is necessary to look upon the Northwest Coast
culture as one that fell far short of the high civilizations of Middle
America, in fact barely equaled that of the Southwest, yet as the only
one in the New World that grew to any notability with but slight
dependence on Middle America. It is an isolated secondary peak
standing aloof from the greater one that culminated in Mexico and
Peru and to which all the remainder of the hemisphere was
subordinate. Figure 35 visualizes this historic relation.
209. Northern Marginal Areas

The Arctic, Mackenzie, Plateau, and California areas were also but
little influenced by Middle American civilization. In fact, most of the
elements which they share with it may be considered direct survivals
of the general proto-American culture out of which the early Middle
American civilization emerged. Yet why these areas on the Pacific
side of North America should have profited so much less by the
diffusion of Mexican advancement than the areas on the Atlantic, is
not clear. In the mostly frozen Arctic and Mackenzie tracts, the
hostile environment may have forbidden. But this explanation
certainly does not apply to the California area which lies at the very
doors of the Southwest and yet refrained from taking over such
fundamentals as agriculture and pottery. Sparseness of population
cannot be invoked as a cause, since at least along the coast the
density of population was greater than in almost all the eastern half
of the continent.
Of the people of these four areas, the Eskimo are the only ones
that evinced notable originality. It is easy to attribute this quality of
theirs to the stern rigor of environment. In fact, it has been customary
to appeal to the Eskimo as an example of the popular maxim that
necessity is the mother of invention. Yet it is clear that no great
weight can be attached to this simple philosophy. It is true that
without his delicately adjusted harpoon, his skin boat, his snow hut,
his dog sled, and his seal oil lamp, the Eskimo could not have
maintained an existence on the terrifically inhospitable shores of the
Arctic. But there is nothing to show that he was forced to live in this
environment. Stretches of mountains, desert, and tundra in other
parts of the world were often left uninhabited by uncivilized peoples.
Why did not the Eskimo abandon his Arctic shore or refuse to settle
it in the first place, crowding his way instead into some more
favorable habitat? His was a sturdy stock that should have had at
least an equal chance in a competition with other peoples.
Furthermore it is evident that rigorous environment does not
always force development or special cultural adaptations. The tribes
of the Mackenzie-Yukon and the most northerly part of the Northeast
area lived under a climate about as harsh as that of the Eskimo. In
fact they were immediate neighbors; yet their culture is definitely
more meager. A series of the most skilled devices of the Eskimo
were wanting among them. If necessity were truly as productive a
cause of cultural progress as is commonly thought, these
Athabascan and Algonkin Indians should have been stimulated into
a mechanical ingenuity comparable to that of the Eskimo, instead of
continuing to rank below them.
These considerations compel the conclusion that the Eskimo did
not develop the achievements of his culture because he lived in his
difficult environment, but that he lived in the environment because he
possessed a culture capable of coping with it. This does not mean
that he had his culture worked out to the last detail before he settled
on the American shores of the Arctic ocean. It does mean that he
possessed the fundamentals of the culture, and the habits of
ingenuity, the mechanical and practical turn of mind, which enabled
him to carry it farther and meet new requirements as they came up.
Where and how he acquired the fundamentals is obscure. It is well to
remember in this connection that the physical type of the Eskimo is
the most distinctive in the New World, and that his speech has as yet
shown no inclination to connect with any other American language. It
is conceivable that the origin of the Eskimo is to be set at a time later
than that of the American race and somewhere in Asia. The fact that
at present there are Eskimo villages on the Siberian side of Behring
Strait is too recent and local a phenomenon to afford strong
confirmation of such a view, but certainly does not operate against it.
Somewhere in the Siberian region, then, within occasional reach of
influences emanating from higher centers of civilization in Asia or
Europe, the Eskimo may have laid the foundations of their culture,
specialized it further as they encountered new conditions in new
Asiatic habitats, and evolved only the finishing touches of their
remarkable adaptation after they spread along the northernmost
shores of America. Some of the Old World culture influences which
had reached them before they entered America may go back to the
Magdalenian culture of the Palæolithic. There are at any rate certain
resemblances between Magdalenian and Eskimo cultures that have
repeatedly impressed observers: the harpoon, spear thrower, lamp,
carving, and graphic art (§ 67).
210. Later Asiatic Influences

One set of influences the Eskimo, and to a lesser degree the
peoples of adjacent areas, were unquestionably subject to and
profited by: sporadic culture radiations of fairly late date from Asia.
Such influences were probably not specially important, but they are
discernible. They came probably as disjected bits independent of
one another. There may have been as many that reached America
and failed of acceptance as were actually taken up. In another
connection (§ 92) it has been pointed out how the tale known as the
“Magic Flight” has spread from its Old World center of origin well into
northwestern America. A similar case has been made out for a
material element: the sinew-backed or composite bow (§ 101), first
found some three to four thousand years ago in western Asia. This is
constructed, in Asia, of a layer each of wood, sinew, and horn; in its
simpler American form, which barely extends as far south as the
Mexican frontier, of either wood or horn reinforced with sinew. Body
armor of slats, sewn or wound into a garment, seems to have spread
from Asia to the Northwest Coast. The skin boat, represented in its
most perfect type by the Eskimo kayak; the tipi or conical tent of
skins; birchbark vessels; sleds or toboggans with dog traction; bark
canoes with underhung ends; and garments of skin tailored—cut and
sewn—to follow the contours of the body, may all prove to represent
culture importations from Asia. At any rate they are all restricted in
America to the part north and west of a line connecting the St.
Lawrence and Colorado rivers, the part of the continent that is
nearest to Asia. South and east of this line, apparently, Middle
American influences were strong enough to provide the local groups
with an adequate culture of American source; and, the Asiatic
influences being feeble on account of remoteness, Asiatic culture
traits failed of acceptance. It is also noteworthy that all of the traits
last mentioned are absent on the Northwest Coast, in spite of its
proximity to Asia. The presumable reason is that the Northwest
Coast, having worked out a relatively advanced and satisfactory
culture adaptation of its own, had nothing to gain by taking over
these elementary devices; whereas to the culturally poorer peoples
of the Arctic, Mackenzie, Plateau, and in part of the California,
Plains, and Northeastern areas, they proved a valuable acquisition.
A careful analysis of Eskimo culture in comparison with north and
east Asiatic culture may reveal further instances of elements that
have spread from one hemisphere to the other. Yet the sum total of
such relatively late contributions from the civilization of the Old World
to that of the New, during the last one or two or three or four
thousand years, is not likely to aggregate any great bulk. Since the
early culture importation of the period of the settlement of America
eight or ten thousand years ago, the influences of the Old World
have always been slight as compared with the independent
developments within the New World. Even within the northwestern
segment of North America, the bulk of culture would seem to have
been evolved on the spot. But mingled with this local growth, more or
less modifying it in the nearer regions, and reaching its greatest
strength among the Eskimo, has been a trickling series of later
Asiatic influences which it would be mistaken wholly to overlook.

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Essentials of Operations Management

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First published 2011 (print)

© Nigel Slack, Alistair Brandon-Jones and Robert Johnston 2011 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-292-23884-5 (print)

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F01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845 Contents.indd 4 30/05/2018 20:16

1 Operations management and performance 2

3 Product and service innovation 70

4 Process design – resources 100

5 Process design – analysis 130

6 Supply chain management 162

7 Capacity management 198

8 Inventory management 234

9 Resource planning and control 274

10 Lean operations 308

11 Operations improvement 342

12 Quality management 376

13 Project management 408

F01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845 Contents.indd 5 30/05/2018 20:16

To the student xxiii What is operations management? 4

Index 444 What is the processes hierarchy? 20

Operations management is relevant to all parts

How do operations and processes

What do operations managers do? 27

The model of operations management 31

Summary answers to key questions 32

F01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845 Contents.indd 7 30/05/2018 20:16

What is strategy and what is operations What is product and service

Summary answers to key questions 64

F01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845 Contents.indd 8 30/05/2018 20:16

variety 119 Problems and applications 159

Summary answers to key questions 125

F01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845 Contents.indd 9 30/05/2018 20:16

What is supply chain management? 164 What is capacity management? 200

Customer relationship management (CRM) 186 Yield management 218

F01 Essentials of Operations Manag 38845 Contents.indd 10 30/05/2018 20:16

Considering capacity decisions using queuing

Summary answers to key questions

What is inventory? 236

All processes, operations and supply networks

Why do you need inventory? 239

So why have inventory? 240

How much should you order? (The volume

When should you order? (The timing