Operations Management: Key Functions, Roles and Skills

This is a solid starting base for maximizing the efficiency of your operations. Still, you will need constant and competent management to correct the accidental mistakes in planning, to adjust production to changing costs or regulations, and keep them efficient on many levels. He presented his list of 10 principles of operations management at an APICS conference in 2007, saying the violation of these principles had caused the struggle US manufacturing companies were experiencing. Operations management is now a multidisciplinary functional area in a company, along with finance and marketing.

It is concerned with converting materials and labor into goods and services as efficiently as possible to maximize the profit of an organization. There are five main functional areas of management viz., human resource, production office, finance and marketing; which have been discussed below. From the 1950’s and 1960’s, it formed a separate discipline, besides bringing other concepts, such as Taylorism, production planning, or inventory control, to life. Especially as mastering these basics can directly support your business goals. Operations management anticipates the capacity requirements by way of forecasting.

• Raw materials are purchased for production by the industrial enterprises and finished goods are purchased for resale by the commercial enterprises.
• Then, communicate forecast results to department leaders so they can adjust future plans accordingly.
• For Google’s web-based and software products, this decision area of operations management maintains almost the same number of workers even if demand for these products increases.
• While tech companies may find finance and strategy more important and manufacturing companies may focus more on the supply chain, these seven functions draw a full picture of how to run any internal team.
• The major objective of any business concern is to make profit for its owners by selling goods or services.

Once you set a baseline in the Gantt chart, you can track your progress and performance across all project views. But to get a high-level view of project metrics, you’ll want to toggle over to the live dashboard. There’s no time-consuming configuration as with other lightweight software solutions.

The 16 principles of operations management by Dr. Richard Schonberger

This approach concentrates on the future to meet long-term objectives and ensure lasting success. One key aspect is using operational data to analyze results and adjust long-term strategic plans where necessary. Once you’ve outlined a set of quality standards, use them as a benchmark for quality management moving forward. In the end, an operations manager’s job is to ensure that the company stays profitable by providing the teams with the effective solutions they require.

• To push your company leaders toward financial success, you’ll need to plan ahead.
• This discipline focuses on formulating strategies and taking actions to optimize production and supply chain performance.
• Then, it plans for capacity, facility, resource aggregation, resource management, and other necessary operation management functions to layout a system that the organization can use for achieving these targets.
• Alphabet Inc. (formerly Google Inc.) applies strategic decisions in operations management for optimal innovation and productivity.
• Operations management also typically follows up with customers to ensure that the products meet quality and functionality needs.
• IBM implements policies and reforms through these 10 strategic decision areas to maximize the effectiveness of implementation while ensuring the continuity of operations.
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A finance manager has to make estimation with regards to capital requirements of the company. This will depend upon expected costs and profits and future programmes and policies of a concern. Estimations have to be made in an adequate manner which increases the earning capacity of enterprise. The major function of marketing department is to generate revenue for the business by selling want satisfying goods and services to the customers. A programme is a schedule of operations arranged in a logical sequence.

HR Manager

Their key responsibilities include overseeing daily business activities, studying processes and preparing operational and financial reports. Effective operations management touches all aspects of essential work, including supply chain, and ensures the company is meeting key performance indicators . Managers use operations management KPIs to make informed decisions and coordinate efforts across the supply chain and organization as a whole. Without operations management, critical business functions like R&D, client service delivery, information technology and inventory control are prone to mismanagement and underfunding. For example, if your company doesn’t provide a physical product, you likely won’t focus much on supply chain management.

The finance department will handle everything from revenue to salaries. Meanwhile, you should limit your financial participation to things relevant to the production process. The role of operations management is to uphold operational efficiency. Always be on the lookout for new advancements to remove bottlenecks and improve your operations strategy. An air traffic controller monitors things like weather, flight movement, and pilot communications.

Levels of Operations Management

It is needed for carrying on business, achieving growth and development, and protecting its identity in the changing environment. Financial management is concerned with managerial decision of acquisition and financing of long term and short term credit for the business enterprise. It involves planning, organizing and controlling of financial resources. Operations managers work to ensure a company achieves the highest operating profit by carefully balancing cost and revenue. They work closely with other teams to increase productivity, deliver high-quality products and services, and ensure customers are satisfied.

Marketer has to take important decisions on the promotional measures which would stimulate demand for the products thus enhancing volume of sales. A battery of tools used in this connection include advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and public relations. Office means a place for where the different activities of the organisation are planned and controlled. It is the place from where the employees are given directions and guidance. It is the responsibility of this functional area of management to keep the organisation in working condition.

Under personnel management comes several activities concerning employees. Main personnel activities are recruitment, selection, training, job evaluation, fixation of remuneration, etc. As an organisational objective, personnel management has to make maximum utilisation of the available labour resources possible in an organisation.

This operations management decision area deals with satisfying quality standards, based on Alphabet’s business strategies and customer expectations. As one of the world’s biggest information technology businesses, the company has high quality standards to ensure market leadership. At Google, Alphabet’s operations management involves quality requirements for advanced technologies for its online services and consumer electronics. In quality management applications, Google uses iterative testing, debugging, and innovation.

Manage your human resources and add their availability, including PTO and global holidays, to make it easy to assign work. Then get a real-time view of their productivity on our color-coded workload chart. If your team is over-allocated, simply re-allocate work from the chart. Balancing workload increases productivity and improves morale, which also increases productivity. The role of operations management boils down to driving optimal results while reducing costs. An effective operations manager allocates a company’s resources to achieve goals and meet standards.

For instance, managers implement design requirements and make the necessary allocations for cost, quality and resources, while keeping productivity targets. In this way, the value and technological breakthrough aims in IBM’s vision statement and mission statement are fulfilled along with the satisfaction of operational objectives. Moreover, managers aim to integrate technological opportunities, such as the ones identified in the PESTEL/PESTLE analysis of IBM, in the methods implemented in this strategic decision area of operations management. The goal is to keep operations flexible enough for business growth opportunities, while adhering to design specifications and operational consistency requirements. Alphabet Inc. (formerly Google Inc.) applies strategic decisions in operations management for optimal innovation and productivity. This business condition promotes efficiency and high productivity in innovating information technology products.

A modern, integrated vision of the many aspects of operations management may be found in recent textbooks on the subject. The goal in this operations management area is to efficiently move resources and information throughout Alphabet’s business organization. At the company’s data centers, layout design affects process productivity in inventory management and other areas of data center operations management.

Promotion of a product is crucial to a product’s success in the market. Efforts to try and convince consumers through communication to buy the product are generally called promotions. Development management is related with the management of research activities. There should be a proper balance between debt and share capital as it influences the market price of the shares and cost of capital.

Under marketing management, marketing manager plays an important role in discharging the social obligation of the business. To this end, his constant endeavour is to produce good quality products, to supply goods and services at reasonable prices, to avoid false promises through publicity media, to ensure good behaviour to the customers, etc. As a result of this effort, on the one hand, social obligation of the business is fulfilled and on the other, its goodwill is enhanced. A recent trend that impacts the human resources management activities in operations is the increasing involvement of employees in the planning processes. Listening to the opinions of the workers often brings up fresh ideas, a different perspective on what problems should be solved and how to make the operations more effective.

To conclude, it can be said that under financial management, financial needs of a business are met in such a manner that its goals can easily be achieved. A personnel manager represents his organisation in the meeting convened by the government and non-government organisations to find solution to the problems of employees. When a personnel manager seeks to solve dispute between management and employees, then he plays the role of a mediator. When a personnel manager listens to the problems of different employees working in the organisation and brings the same to the notice of general manager, then he plays the role of a counsellor. He gives his advice to the general manager regarding solution to these problems. When a personnel manager advises heads of other departments regarding solution to the problems relating to their employees, then he acts as a staff executive.

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Healthcare & Life sciences Improve efficiency — and patient experiences. Some management experts have also talked of ‘Information and Administration Management’, ‘Accounting Management’, and ‘Research and Development Management’ as forming part of the func­tional area of management. But these are at best subsidiary parts of one or the other of the four main areas of management. Retained Profit – The volume has to be decided which will depend upon expansional, innovational, diversification plans of the company.

Forbes magazine reported in 2011 that three-quarters of CEOs come from an operations background, which shows the importance of understanding how a company functions. Compensation may be defined as money received in the performance of work, plus the many kind of benefits and services that organisation provide to their employees. The finance manager has not only to plan, procure and utilize the funds but he also has to exercise control over finances. This can be done through many techniques like ratio analysis, financial forecasting, cost and profit control, etc. Finance manager has to make decisions with regards to cash management.