Operations Management Basics

Managerial Factors

• Managerial factors refer to the unique planning and managerial skills of an organization's manager.

Quality of Work Life

• Quality of work life is a term that describes an organization's culture and its ability to motivate and satisfy employees.

Scope of Operations Management

• Operations management is concerned with the conversion of inputs into outputs using physical resources.
• It aims to provide desired utilities to customers while meeting other organizational objectives of effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability.

Operations Management Functions

• Location of facilities
• Plant layouts and material handling
• Product design
• Process design
• Production and planning control
• Quality control
• Materials management
• Maintenance management

Location of Facilities

• Location of facilities is a long-term capacity decision involving a long-term commitment to geographically static factors.
• It is an important strategic level decision-making process for an organization.

Plant Layout and Material Handling

• Plant layout refers to the physical arrangement of facilities in the conversion process.
• The overall objective of plant layout is to design a physical arrangement that meets the required output quality and quantity most economically.

Product Design

• Product design deals with the conversion of ideas into reality.
• It involves enhancements made by a company/individual to a product or service before offering it for sale to the end customer.

Operations Management Objectives

• Operations management objectives can be categorized into customer service and resource utilization.

Customer Service

• The primary objective of operating systems is to utilize resources for the satisfaction of customer wants.
• Customer service involves providing the right thing at the right price at the right time.

Resource Utilization

• Resource utilization involves obtaining maximum effect from resources or minimizing their loss, underutilization, or waste.
• The extent of resource utilization can be expressed in terms of the proportion of available time used, space utilization, and levels of activity.

The Strategic Role of Operations

• The primary goals of organizations are related to market opportunities.
• Economy and efficiency of conversion operations are secondary goals.

Strategic Planning

• Strategic planning is the process of thinking through the current mission of the organization and the current environmental conditions.
• It involves setting forth a guide for tomorrow's decisions and results.

Process Design

• Process design involves macroscopic decision-making of an overall process route for converting raw materials into finished goods.
• It includes the selection of a process, choice of technology, process flow analysis, and layout of facilities.

Production Planning and Control

• Production planning and control involves planning the production in advance, setting the exact route of each item, and fixing the starting and finishing dates.
• Its main functions include planning, routing, scheduling, dispatching, and follow-up.