Many governments, for various reasons, do not perform as they should in order to offer

goods and services to the people.

Given the competitive nature of the business sector, the cost and time of production, as
well as the quality of the goods and/or services provided, are all crucial. As a result, many
strategies are developed and adopted in order to stay ahead of the competition.

Among the tactics utilised by the businesses that have survived are operations and
quality management.

Definition

Barndt and Carvey (1982: 1) define operations management as the process of planning,
organising and controlling operations to reach objectives with efficiency and
effectiveness. They view operations as processes to transform resources in order to create
a result in the form of a product or service.

Origin of Operational Management

Operations management was traditionally known as production management,

indicating its manufacturing roots. It all started with the division of labour, which dates
back to the time of ancient craftsmen, but it wasn't until the seventeenth century that the
concept of interchangeability of parts was added, which sparked the industrial revolution.

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As the developed world's economies began to shift toward a service-based economy, all
corporate functions, including product management, began to merge. The service side
began by applying product management ideas to the planning and organisation of
processes, to the point where operations management made more sense.

The Ten principles of OM by Randall Schaeffer

Randall Schaeffer is an industrial philosopher and a frequent conference speaker with

extensive experience in manufacturing and operations management.

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 Reality: Operations management should concentrate on the problem rather than
the techniques, as no single instrument can provide a universal answer.
 Organising:Manufacturing processes are interrelated and require organisation. To
get a similar result in profitability, all factors must be predictable and consistent.
 Fundamentals: The Pareto rule applies to operations as well: a tight adherence to
correctly preserving records and disciplines accounts for 80% of success, while
applying new approaches to processes accounts for just 20%.
 Accountability: Managers are expected to set the rules and benchmarks, specify
their subordinates' tasks, and check on their goals on a regular basis. Only in this
manner would the workers put out the required effort.
 Variance: Process variation must be promoted since, when properly managed, it
may be a source of creativity.
 Causality: Problems are the manifestations of underlying causes. The same
problems will resurface unless the root causes are addressed.
 Passion That is Controlled: Employee passion can be a major engine of company
growth, and managers may instil it if it does not come naturally.
 Humility: Rather than wasting money on costly trial and error, managers should
recognize their limitations, "seek support, and move on."

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  Success: What constitutes success will evolve over time, but always keep the client
in mind. All of the other principles must be revisited on a regular basis in order to
maintain them.
 Change: There will always be new theories and answers, so you should accept
change and manage for long-term stability rather than sticking to one or the other.

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IMPORTANCE OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

The goal of operations management is to regulate the production process and

corporate operations as efficiently as feasible. To maximise net operating profit, OM
experts try to balance operational costs with revenue.

OM is a major unit that must initially stand for a production or manufacturing

organisation to be successful.

Take, for example, an oil and gas corporation that has shipped product to reservoirs in
order to make it available to a large number of customers. OM ensures that items are
delivered efficiently and prepares and schedules what needs to be done when and how it
needs to be done. People achieve more and productivity rises when they use OM.

Regardless of the size of a firm or what they perform, operations management is

extensively used.

Some of the Benefits are as Follows:

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  Operation management entails identical management for every industry or firm.
Its key components include planning, organising, staffing, monitoring,
regulating, directing, and inspiring.
 Organisations must use operation management to run their daily operations
smoothly. An organisation can make better use of its resources, such as labour,
raw materials, money, and other resources, with its assistance.
 Improving overall productivity necessitates the use of operations management.
Productivity is defined as the ratio of input to output. It provides a gauge of both
the manager's and the employees' efficiency.
 Because the discipline focuses on maximising the use of available resources to
attain end goals, it boosts total productivity.
 Operation management oversees the many business operations that take place
within an organisation and helps to ensure that products meet the needs of
customers.
 Under operation management, resources are used to their full potential, resulting
in massive revenues for the company.
 Employees' labour, as well as diverse raw supplies, are efficiently exploited and
turned into the services and items that the business requires.
 Operation management is important in an organisation because it deals
with concerns such as the design, operation, and maintenance of the system
that is utilised to produce things.
 Operations management ensures that personnel are properly matched to
resources in order to get the best possible results. Effective operations
management is the only way to ensure productivity.
 There is no better feeling for a management or employee than to have a customer
who is completely satisfied. This is properly ensured through operations
management, along with a high-quality product. Customers make organisations
thrive and they must be treated well in every way necessary and possible.

Previously, everyone felt that operation management was unimportant to the

organisation's success, but it was later revealed that it is critical to the organisation's
success. It was discovered that manufacturing raw materials for items and selling them, as
well as sales management, are required, and this is accomplished efficiently by controlling
operations.

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 WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The use of specialised knowledge, skills, tools, and processes to provide something of
value to others is known as project management.

Projects include the development of software to improve a company process, the

construction of a building, the relief effort following a natural disaster, and the expansion
of sales into a new geographic market.

"At its most fundamental, project management is about people getting things
done."

-Dr Martin Barnes, APM President 2003-2012

Essential Elements of Project Management

The following are the essential elements of project management:

 Establishing why a project is needed

 Capturing project requirements
 Specifying the quality of outputs
 Estimating resources and timeframes
 Putting together a business case to support the investment
 Obtaining business approval and finance

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  Creating and implementing a project management plan
 Directing and inspiring the project crew
 Managing the project's risks, issues, and modifications
 Tracking progress against the plan
 Managing the project budget
 Maintaining communication with stakeholders and the project organisation
 Provider management
 When it's time, close the project in a controlled manner

Change is Fueled by Project Management

Project management has always been practised informally throughout human

history, but it became a separate profession in the mid-20th century when a group of
forward-thinking individuals from the aerospace, engineering, pharmaceutical, and
telecommunications industries realised that a changing world required new tools.

They got together to start laying down and standardising the tools for a new profession,
driven by the necessity to manage the scheduling and resource difficulties that come with
increasingly complicated projects. The Project Management Institute (PMI) was founded
in 1969.

Understanding by Example

Let's imagine a project manager is in charge of leading a team of software

developers. They start by determining the project's scope. The project team, which may

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comprise developers, engineers, technical writers, and quality assurance professionals, is
then assigned duties. The project manager sets deadlines and creates a timetable.

To decide which tasks are to be done by which departments, a project manager

would frequently employ visual representations of workflow, such as Gantt charts
or PERT charts. They created a budget that contains enough finances to keep the project
on track even if unforeseen expenses arise. The project manager also ensures that the
team has all of the resources it requires to develop, test, and deliver software.

When a large IT company, such as Cisco Systems Inc., buys smaller businesses, a project
manager's responsibility is to integrate project team members from varied backgrounds
and develop a sense of group purpose about achieving the end goal. Project managers
may have some technical expertise, but they also have the essential job of
translating high-level corporate visions into practical results that are delivered on
time and on budget.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Organisations ran on the basis of relationships, connections, and trust that developed through
time before the creation of project management or its history. This was the era when project
management tasks were carried out without the use of computers or software, and records were
kept on paper.

All projects were typically planned by qualified technical personnel, while large projects
were taken on by experts.

Initiation of PM

Following the concept of project management, the methods for handling and conducting activities
were altered. The evolution of project management in the engineering industry began in the
1950s.

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The progenitors of this notion are Henry Fayol and Henry Gantt, who built the groundwork for
project management and spread it across all professions. Their most significant contributions are
approaches for breaking down work into main deliverables (Work Breakdown Structure) and
allocating resources for optimal project performance.

Eras of Project management

The history of project management can be better understood by identifying four major
periods:

 Before 1958, there was a period known as the "First Era" of project management.

The concept of project management dates from the 1900s through the 1950s. With the addition of
a Work Breakdown Structure, major advances in project management were noticed at the time,
particularly in project scheduling, resource allocation, and management of project tasks and
deliverables.

During this time, Henry Gantt invented the Gantt Chart, which is now a standard feature of all
modern project management software, such as Primavera Project Management (Primavera P6)
and Microsoft Project.

Communication accelerated during this period as a result of improved telecommunications

infrastructure, which made project management more efficient.

 Second Era – 1958-1979

From Xerox's debut of an automatic plain-paper copier to the advent of the CPM/PERT concept
and Material Requirement Planning, this was a time of tremendous innovation. During this
time, the most important specialised developments in project management were in schedule
planning and control using network approaches.

Due to the expansion and important breakthroughs in this subject, two professional project
management firms were established in the 1960s.

 The first is the International Project Management Association (IPMA), a European-

based organisation that was founded in 1965 to provide a platform for the majority of
European organisations involved in network planning.
 Second, the Project Management Institute (PMI), which was founded in North America
in 1969 and has a majority of members from the United States and Canada.

 Third Era – 1980-1994

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Between the 1980s and the mid-1990s, the IT/IS sector grew in prominence, contributing
significantly to the development of high proficiency in coordinating and overseeing projects
using multitasking computers.

The impression of a proper project management system for origin changes, expanded efforts to
serve organised approaches to project management, inclusion of project functions such as

 scope
 risk
 procurement
 communication
 quality
 human resource in time and cost
 adjusted ways to deal with the entire project and product life cycles
 more focus on external environments and factors including stakeholders and establishment
were all major accomplishments during this era.

 Fourth Era – 1995-Present

Various changes in company operations and practices occurred in the middle of the 1990s as a
result of the global advancement or acceptance of internet technology. Between 1995 and
2000, the revolution in information technology prompted a greater adoption of project
management approaches.

Project management existed in the past when there were projects such as the Parthenon,
transcontinental railways, the Giza Pyramid, the Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, and Europe's Gothic
cathedrals. Project management is now in its final form, and it is the result of years of hard work.

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<< Previous
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LEVELS OF PROJECTS AND MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR

Although it is commonly maintained that excellent project management can help a

project succeed, it is unlikely to prevent failure (Bjeirmi & Munns, 1996), the investment
in a project management project can be justified, especially in the case of expensive public
sector projects.

Levels of Project Management

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Project Initiation

The first stage of project management entails providing the project a broad definition
and determining whether or not it is feasible. The stakeholders in charge will usually utilise
one of two approaches to decide whether or not to approve the project:

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  Documentation for the Business Case: This will outline the project's justification
in terms of what the organisation needs, how it will benefit them, and how it can
generate financial return.
 Feasibility Study: This document evaluates the resources required to finish the
project and compares them to the resources available to the company. In this
method, the project's timeframe and cost are assessed, as well as whether it is the
best alternative.

If the project passes these two criteria, the next step in the initiation phase is to create
a project charter, also known as a project initiation document (PID), which contains an
overview of the project's goals, stakeholders, and business case.

Project Planning

A more detailed summary of the project's aims and requirements is generated during
the project planning stage. This is where a project manager's abilities are put to the
test. The following items are included in project planning:

Your team will be given a roadmap of what is required for project success during the
project planning phase, much as it is critical for a PM to understand the five stages of
project planning.

Project Execution

This is the start of the creative stage, in which the meticulously planned project plans
are transformed into tangible deliverables. A kick-off meeting will normally be held to
provide everyone an overview of their goals, following which each team member will be
aware of what is expected of them.

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The following items are included in the project's execution:

Project Monitoring

The project manager serves as a vital link between the project team on the ground
and other stakeholders who are less involved in the day-to-day details of what's going
on. As a result, a project manager must be able to successfully measure and communicate
project progress in order to ensure that everything is running smoothly.

Project Closure

The final deliverables are handed delivered or go online at this point of the project
management process. This stage allows you, your team, and your stakeholders to
assess how successful the project was and what lessons were learnt along the way.

It's also a good idea to set up an ongoing process for formalising and feeding this
information back into your project management system. For leveraging past projects and
team work, tools that provide an audit trail and a manner of recording what's happened
are useful.

Flexible systems that can easily incorporate change are particularly useful since they can
be optimised fast and take use of fresh information.

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 LEVELS OF OPERATION MANAGEMENT

The administration of business activities to achieve the best level of efficiency feasible
inside an organisation is known as operations management (OM). It is concerned with
efficiently transforming materials and labour into goods and services in order
to maximise an organisation's profit.

The goal of operations management teams is to produce the largest net operational
profit achievable by balancing costs and income.

Managers in operations management play a critical role in the firms where they work, and
there are managers at various levels who are responsible for specific responsibilities.

The operation management hierarchy in most businesses is divided into three

tiers, each of which has been examined in length below.

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First Level Managers

Lower level managers are at the bottom of the Operations management hierarchy and
are referred to as first level managers. They provide a link between non-managerial
personnel and those in management positions. They function as the supervisor in most
companies and are involved in the management of the business's day-to-day
operations. They might also work in the retail industry as store managers. Their primary
responsibilities include:

 Management of human resources activities

 Budgeting\Scheduling
 Disciplinary actions
 Non-managerial personnel are given orders and their work is supervised.
 Assign tasks to staff and classify them.
 Check that all of the tools and machinery are in good operating order.
 Convey the issues faced by the organisation to the senior managers.

Mid-Level Managers

After a few years of experience, first-level managers are promoted to mid-level

managers, also known as middle managers. They collaborate with lower-level
managers as well as managers at the top levels of the Operations management structure.
Middle managers are active in day-to-day activities in some businesses, but in the majority
of cases, they must rely on first-level managers for the necessary inputs. They can be

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regional managers, but most of the time they are the company's general manager or
operations manager. Among their key responsibilities are:

 Interpret and carry out the policies set out by the highest management.
 Give orders to the lower-level managers.
 Employees should be trained and encouraged to improve their productivity.
 Ensure that all of the company's departments are running well.

Upper Level Manager

These managers are the top executives of any organisation, and their job is dependent on
the input provided by the middle level managers, and they are responsible for all of the
company's important choices. Chief financial officers, chief executive officers, and the rest
of the company's senior executives are in charge of the company's vision and all major
decisions. They must do so.

 Set the organisation's goals and develop plans and policies to achieve them.
 Provide the organisation's general direction.

Operations Management & Transformation

Inputs (labour, capital, equipment, land, buildings, materials, and information) are
transformed into outputs (goods and services) that provide additional value to customers
by operations management.

Whether a for-profit firm, a non-profit organisation (such as a religious organisation or a

hospital), or a government agency, all companies must aim to improve the quality of their
transformation processes in order to meet client expectations.

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 FOUR V’S OF OPERATION MANAGEMENT

The organisations that provide the best quality of service or products attract the most clients. As
a result, prominence is crucial. However, ability is also crucial; if notoriety attracts
customers, ability helps organisations maintain those clients. The organisation's ability reveals
who they are.

Operations in a service-based firm are often task-oriented, with clear processes to follow until
the service is done. In a manufacturing company, on the other hand, operations are even more
central, following the product from conception to completion and then on to the tertiary stage,
which is usually distribution.

The Overview

All operations processes have one thing in common: they all transform 'inputs' such as raw
materials, expertise, capital, equipment, and time into outputs (goods and services). They
achieve this in a variety of ways, with the key four being Volume, Variety, Variation, and
Visibility.

 Volume

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Looking at a fast food giant like McDonalds is a fantastic example of this.

They are well-known for producing high-volume, low-cost hamburgers and quick meals. The size
of their organisation has a significant impact on how they run their firm. The repeatability of the
duties, as well as the systemization of the labour, are critical to their success. Standards and
procedures determine how each aspect of the project is completed, and by combining them in this
way, the organisation is able to maintain a low cost base.

A local café or restaurant, on the other hand, will have a considerably lower volume of output,
fewer labour, less systemization, and each employee will execute a broader range of duties,
resulting in greater unit costs.

 Variety

The contrast between a cab and a bus service is a popular example used to explain the
diversity dimension. Both provide hired transportation, but a taxi service offers a far wider range
of options because they will pick you up and drop you off anywhere you need to go.

A bus can only offer a set route and timetable. While they both provide identical services, the taxi
firm offers more variety and flexibility than the bus company. It's worth mentioning that a
low-cost strategy is easier to establish when there's less diversity.

 Variation

Consider the following two home construction companies. One company sells prefabricated
dwellings that can be ordered from a catalogue or ordered online. Over the course of a few days,
it is transported to the location and built.

The second building firm specialises in custom homes, and they have display homes that you may
tour. The user can customise every part of the home, from the façade to the number of bedrooms
to the floor materials to the type of heating.

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The design and construction process might last anywhere from 24 to 52 weeks. Company two
will have a considerably greater cost and smaller volume than company one, which has
standard pricing and can easily control expenses.

 Visibility

Customers' ability to observe, track, and order their experience or order through the
operations process is referred to as this dimension. Courier businesses, where you can follow
your shipment online, or a retail store where you may pick up the goods and purchase them over
the counter, are examples of high visibility dimensions.

A web design company that takes your order and tells you your new website will be ready in 4–8
weeks is an example of a low visibility dimension. The quality of service provided by employees
will have a significant impact on the customer's experience.

In order to ensure process excellence, these four areas should be carefully addressed. It involves
improvements in efficiency, cycle time, and overall production. In other words, adding value to
the organisation.

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TYPES OF PUBLIC SECTOR PROJECTS

The term 'public project' is a bit of a misnomer, but in basic terms, it refers to
a government-funded initiative that is typically owned and controlled by the
government.

This could include major infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, dams, railways,
tunnels, and so on, as well as public amenities like hospitals, schools, jails, libraries,
and recreation centres.

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Because public projects are primarily supported by tax dollars, they are held to a
higher standard of scrutiny, and greater transparency in the bidding and contract award
processes is essential.

Public projects frequently publicise their needs and solicit bids in an open and transparent
manner, with submitted bids being considered in an open and transparent manner. In
order to be given a public contract, the government might also specify certain conditions
that a supplier must meet, such as minimum pay levels, reporting methods, and so on.

Following are Different Projects Undertaken by Public Sector:

 Manufacturing Projects: Where the end product is a vehicle, ship, plane, or piece
of machinery, for example.
 Construction Projects: Projects that result in the construction of buildings,
bridges, roads, tunnels, and other structures. This category includes mining and
petrochemical developments.
 Management Projects: These are projects that involve organising or re-organising
work without necessarily providing a tangible result. The design and testing of a
new computer software package, the move of a company's headquarters, or the
staging of a theatrical show are all examples.
 Projects of Research: In which the goals may be difficult to define and the
outcomes are unexpected.

Objectives of Project

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A project has basic three objectives as follows:

 Performance or Function: The final product must meet the needs of the end
user. When considering a project to design a racing automobile, the goals must
be to create a vehicle that meets specified performance, reliability, and safety
standards.
 Budgeting and Expenditure Containment: Another factor for project success is
this. Continuing with the racing car development example, if development
expenses exceed those anticipated, recovering them from car sales may necessitate
raising the selling price too far above prices charged by competitors for similar
products. As a result, projects must be finished within their estimated budgets.
 The Time Scale: In the case of a car, the vehicle should be fully designed and tested
prior to its debut at a motor show.

How can Public sector Projects be prioritised?

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A planning Framework to Evaluate Infrastructure Proposals

Project suggestions are frequently thrown at government officials. They can analyse
proposed projects in a methodical fashion using a complete investment planning
framework by asking the following questions:

 Why and how do some initiatives have a higher chance of attracting investors than
others?
 Other projects aren't "bankable," yet they're nonetheless important.
 What is the best way to prioritise projects?
 What methods will be used to optimise the project portfolio in order to maximise
economic, social, and environmental benefits?

22
A planning framework ensures that each project is chosen for its ability to improve
economic growth and quality of life across the states (including often-overlooked rural
areas) while also contributing to the larger national infrastructure program.

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