Operations Management
OPERATION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT All organizations have operations.? A manufacturing company may conduct operations in a foundry, mill, or factory. Our interest is in the management of operations, or operations management (OM), including the usual management cycle of planning, implementing, and monitoring/controlling. The driving force for OM must be an overriding goal of continually improving service to customers, where customer means the next process as well as the final, external user. ?§ Since there is an operation element in every function of the enterprise, all people in all jobs in every department of the organization should team up for improvement of there own operations management elements. Teaming Up with Customers What happens when suppliers and customer are disconnected Consider design work, for example. Whether we speak of goods or services, time- and distance separation in the supplier-customer connection invites trouble. Question: ?What?s your Job? Question: ?But isn?t your job to serve the customer? In grocery stores, where the supplier-relationship is immediate, the operations manager system is hard pressed to maintain a customer focus. The customer is the next process, or where the work goes next. A buyer?s customer is the associate in the department to whom the purchased item goes;
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