Operations Management

     Operations management is the process of designing, operating, an, controlling a production system that takes physical resources and transforms them into goods and services. This system has three basic phases: input, transformation process, and output.

     At the present time there are two major operations management are; that are getting a great deal of attention: productivity and technology, Productivity is measured by the equation: output/input. The major reason that American productivity has declined vis-a-vis other nations is management ineffectiveness. Too often companies have used a piece-meal approach to their productivity efforts, provided inadequate coordination among the various departments, and allocated insufficient investment in management and supervisory training and development. Today, efforts are under way to correct these mistakes. Meanwhile, in the area of technology, business firms are now turning to robots and other state-of-the-art inventions, including supersonic welders and lower-powered ultra sound.

     There are a number of important operations management functions. One is product design, which consists of planning products to meet customer demand. A second is production planning, which ties together demand forecasts with scheduled resource outputs. A third is purchasing and inventory control, in which management is now making wide use of just-in-time inventory, material requirements planning, and hierarchial production planning. A fourth is quality control, which many firms are pursuing by the use of quality circles. Taken together these four major areas of operations research are helping management meet the challenge for low costs, high quality output being demanded by today's customers.