Operations Management: Operations and the Organization

The course on Operations Management and the Organization is part of the Operations Management Training Program which includes a number of eight sections also presented as individual courses for your convenience.

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FAQs

The Operations Management Training Program includes a number of eight sections also presented as individual courses for your convenience.

After completing this topic, you should be able to match key functional areas of operations with the type of decisions they are typically involved in

Use this to review details about the eight key decision-making areas for operations managers.

It may not always be obvious, but the operations function in organizations plays a role in your everyday activities. Recall the things you might have done today since waking up: getting dressed, eating breakfast, listening to the radio or watching television, driving to work, or perhaps telephoning someone.

The Science of Better Learning

The range of activities of an operations manager is much broader than you might imagine. Operations managers are not only found in factories but in most types of organizations. The scope of what operations management covers can be grasped by considering the wide range of decisions operations managers have to make.

Operations Management Key Functions

After completing this topic, you should be able to identify key differences between service and manufacturing organizations.

If you think about it, what organizations produce can be divided into two categories. They may offer tangible products, such as car batteries, or they may offer intangible services, such as assistance with a technical problem from a help line.

In the past, managing service operations and managing manufacturing operations have been considered opposites. But in modern economies, manufacturing and services seem to be interdependent and overlapping.

Operations in Service and Manufacturing Organizations

After completing this topic, you should be able to match each phase of the process used to formulate organizational strategy with actions typically performed at that phase

Use this to review details about the four phases of the strategy formulation process.

Organizations can't succeed in the present economic climate without having a clear strategy to increase competitiveness. But what is meant by strategy? Strategy is a term originally used in the military to refer to plans to outmaneuver an opposing army. Today, strategy refers to a plan designed to achieve an objective.

It's possible to visualize formulating a strategy as a four-phase process. The first phase is called analysis of external factors, the second is analysis of internal factors, the third is strategy planning, and the fourth is implementation of strategy. Each phase is characterized by actions typically undertaken by strategists during that phase.

Both manufacturing and service organizations face similar competitive challenges, and it's essential in both cases that the operations strategy is aligned with the overall organizational strategy.

Service firms face similar challenges to those faced by manufacturing firms in terms of increased competitiveness, but they also face some unique challenges. These challenges may be grouped under four headings: efficiency, effectiveness, capacity, and quality.

Organizational and Operations Strategy

After completing this topic, you should be able to categorize different types of transformation

Operations will vary from organization to organization. For example, there will be very different activities associated with a retail outlet and a hospital. But whatever the organization, the operations function designs, plans, directs, and improves all the activities that transform resources into goods or services.

Whether a transformation involves raw materials, people, or information, it can be categorized as one of four types. These four categories are manufacturing, transport, supply, and service transformations.

Use this activity to identify transformations in your organization.

The Transformation Model

The course on Operations Management and the Organization is part of the Operations Management Training Program which includes a number of eight sections also presented as individual courses for your convenience.

You think knowing stuff changes the game? You think sitting in a library, stacking up facts like you’re building a Jenga tower, is gonna make you a winner? Man, that’s cute. But life ain't a trivia night. Information alone? It’s worthless. It’s like having a Lamborghini in your garage but you never learned how to drive. You just sit in it, making engine noises. Vroom vroom. People walk by, they see the car, but they also see you ain't going nowhere. You got all this knowledge, all these textbooks, but when life throws a punch, you’re still looking up the definition of "duck." It’s what you *do* with that information that actually matters. Don't be the person with the shiny car and no keys.