Operations and Quality Management – 2 key parts of any production or manufacturing process
Anderson, Anderson & Parker (2013) state that “Operations management is the development, execution and maintenance of effective processes related to activities done over and over, or one time major projects, to achieve specific goals of the organisation.” Whilst Cooke, JTH (2012) states that an operations manager needs “to both meet and reflect changing needs while proactively charting a course that actually delivers the strategic vision of the organisation through its products or services” and that “this is an extremely demanding role, requiring a particular contribution of skills and aptitude.”
The contribution and value-adding role of operations management is rightly at the heart of most organisations.
In relation to this study guide, operations management is an area of business concerned with the production of goods and services, although, within some businesses it may not actually be called operations management. It involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient, in terms of using as few resource as required, and effective in terms of meeting the customer requirements.
In the past, production management was predominantly used within the manufacturing environment. As this role grew, encompassing other responsibilities that were largely linked to supply chains, the title evolved into Operations Management.
Operations management should be important within all businesses, with operations managers responsible for the efficient and effective management of the processes within the company.
In different operations, these processes can have different characteristics, but all operations managers have a similar set of responsibilities and activities.
Operations are responsible for efficiently managing tasks whilst seeking improvement methods to better meet the relevant business objectives and tasks that have been set. Operations management may also be seen as part of a function’s or manager’s responsibility involving the production of internal products and services within the organisation.
Operations managers are concerned with managing the processes which transform a set of inputs (the business’ goods) into outputs (satisfied customers). This is done using an effective and efficient team. These inputs are often referred to as the external phase of a supply chain.
The inputs have links with other key business functions: marketing, finance and human resources and may be classified as materials, people or physical resources.