Operations Management

Operations Management. Operations management focuses on carefully managing the processes to produce and distribute products and services. Major, overall activities often include product creation, development, production and distribution. (These activities are also associated with Product and Service Management.) Related activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations of processes. A great deal of focus is on efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Therefore, operations management often includes substantial measurement and analysis of internal processes. Ultimately, the nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of the products or services in the organization, for example, on retail, manufacturing or wholesale. Sections of This Topic Include. Procurement (Purchasing) Practices. Management Control and Coordinating Function. Management control and coordination includes a broad range of activities to ensure that organizational goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient fashion. Control Function of Management (includes major activities to ensure goals are being met) Product and Service Management. As noted above, the major activities involved in product and service management are similar to those in operations management. However, operations management is focused on the operations of the entire organization, rather than managing a product or service. Product/Service Mgmt (product creation, development, production and distribution and sales) Quality Management. Quality management is crucial to effective operations management, particularly continuous improvement. More recent advancements in quality, such as benchmarking and Total Quality Management, have resulted in advancements to operations management as well. Quality Management (especially continuous improvement, benchmarking and re-engineering) Inventory Management. Costs can be substantial to store and move inventory. Innovative methods, such as Just-in-Time inventory control, can save costs and move products and services to customers more quickly. Basics About Inventory Control and Management. Supply Chain Management. General Resources About and Management. Software Packages. You can often get a software package that will help you manage your inventory. Usually, these packages are primarily for accounting. See Accounting Software. Logistics and Transportation Management. Logistics is focused on the flow of materials and goods from suppliers, through the organization and to the customers, with priority on efficiency and cost effectiveness. Business relocation checklist Want to outsource logistics? Here's what you should know (free registration required for article) General Resources About Logistics and Transportation. Facilities Management. Effective operations management depends a great deal on effective management of facilities, such as buildings, computer systems, signage, lighting, etc. Facilities Management (managing facilities, offices, buildings, signage, lights, etc.) Configuration Management. It's important to track the various versions of products and services. Consider the various versions of software that continually are produced, each with its own version number. Tracking these versions is configuration management. Configuration Management. Distribution Channels. The means of distribution depend very much on the nature of the product or service. Distribution. Enterprise Resource Planning. Enterprise resource planning refers to using a software application to integrate multiple internal and external functions of a business. By facilitating the flow of information between human resources, accounting, inventory control, and other assets, planning and decision making can be made easier. General Resources About Enterprise Resource Planning. (NOTE: The major functions of operations management are all referenced from above.) General Resources. For the Category of Operations Management: To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources. Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.