Operation management - Essay Example

Slack and Lewis (2008) identified three basic verticals for companies such as finance, marketing and operations while finance and marketing activities have close linkage to operation management Slack & Lewis (2008, p. 4) defined operation management as “it is the management of systems or processes that create goods and/or provide services.” Consideration of research works of Slack, Chambers & Johnston (2007) and Hsu & Tang (2010) reveals the fact that operation management has close linkage with supply chain activities.

Slack, Chambers & Johnston (2007) defined supply chain management as the sequence of activities in order to supply resources throughout every phases of value chain. As part of synchronization of supply chain activities and operation management activities; facilities, functions and activities are being used. Facilities- warehouses, processing centres, offices, factories, distribution centres and retail outlets are the place where operations are took place (Slack, 2004). Functions and activities- operation management is collective act and not only operation manager but also supply chain partners and workers play vital role in performing activities like delivery of the resources or final output to facilities, inventory management, customer service, scheduling of operational activities, information management, forecasting of future demand, purchasing of material, designing new product, quality assurance testing etc (Slack, 2004).

While describing nature of operation management in context to manufacturing sector, Slack (2004) and Slack & Lewis (2008) used the following model. Figure 1: Operation Model (Source: Slack & Lewis, 2008) According to the above model, operation management is backed by three strategic verticals such as resources, capabilities of the firm and process that will be deployed in manufacturing new product or processing a service. As part of resources; equipments, financial capital, staff, sourcing from suppliers and technologies is being used in operation management.

As part of capabilities of the firm; application of state of art technology, quantitative formulation of process and process diagrams are being used by operation managers and respective staff members. As part of process; job design, movement of goods in the facilities, process design, new product concept design, new product development etc are being used as part of operation management. So, what is the role or types of activities that operations managers are involved in operation management? Answering the question is not simple because types of activities of operation manager differ significantly with the change in nature of business for organizations.

For example, operational activities of operations managers in manufacturing plan cannot be same operational activities in bank. However, some basic activities of operations manager for manufacturing facilities can be identified as, 1- managing the resources that are being used in different phases of manufacturing, 2- developing and adjusting production schedule, 3- monitoring and controlling quality in