Strategic Operations Management - Essay Example

Author’s Name Instructors’ Name Course Date Operations Management Report Job Description for an Operation’s Manager An operations manager position is a significant role that involves overseeing the production of goods as well as the provision of services (Cooke, 56). Therefore, it is the responsibility of an operations manager to ensure that a company is running with the smooth and efficient delivery of services to the internal and external customers. The following section seeks to discuss the roles and responsibilities of an operations manager. Roles and Responsibilities of an Operations Manager Based on the above overview, it is clear that an operations manager has a broad role, and the specific responsibilities will vary between different companies, but generally, it includes monitoring and analyzing the current system of production or provisions in order to check its effectiveness, and working out a strategy for improvement if necessary (Russell et al., 14). An operations manager focuses on the delicate internal business processes into produce and distributes services and goods in a firm. Many firms, specifically those that are smaller in size typically may not mention the term “operations management or manager” but basically individuals holding such positions carry out roles and responsibilities that are classified under operations management. Although operations managers are about all operations within an organization, the key activities that are covered by operations managers include development, production and distribution, and product creation. Other main responsibilities include controlling inventory, managing purchases, quality control, logistics and evaluations (Russell et al., 54). However, in service industry or firms, operations manager’s work may slightly or greatly differ based on the mode of operation that is practiced in a company. For example, the roles of a manager who works in a firm that operates in a more traditional production based manner may be different from a more flexible mode of operations. However, in both instances, operations management is a critical part in the achievement of goals and objectives. Lots of activities related to the operations management is the effectiveness and efficiency of the firm’s processes (Russell et al., 64). Therefore, an operations manager needs to understand that the key roles include the measurement analysis of all internal processes. At the same time, the nature of how a company is carrying out its operations management is also based on the nature of services and products offered by an organization such as in retailing, wholesaling, and manufacturing, among others. In order to effectively carry out responsibilities and roles in the operations management department, an operation needs to understand the areas of concern under his jurisdiction (Russell et al., 67). One of the most important areas is the understanding of the purchasing practices that the organization is exercising. Such practices may differ from one company to another. However, common purchasing practices include the company’s purchasing and procurement practices, which involve buying different physical materials from vendors and suppliers such as stocks of raw materials, or computer software and systems. The company may also be involved in the outsourcing of services such as quality control of purchased, material and other services including legal assistance, insurances services, and network or system support, among others. Secondly, as indicated above, an operations manager is tasked to ensure quality control of good or services offered to clients and customers (Russell et al., 74). Therefore, quality management is another area that the manager should have a vital interest. Admittedly, to have effective operations management, quality control should regularly be improved. The objective of quality management is to ensure that services and products being offered in a company are meeting the set standards of quality in a given industry or standards set by the same company. In most cases an operations manager will be required to apply some ideas such as the Total Quality Management (TQM) or Continuous Improvement Quality Management in order to improve and enhance all aspects of operations in a company.In addition, an operations manager is expected to understand the product and service management aspects of a company (Russell et al., 75). Product and service management involves creating, developing, producing and distributing goods and services. It also covers the sales and marketing aspect of the business. Although specific units or departments or sections may be tasked to carry out management processes of some lines of production, sort of microenvironment, the operations manager is expected to provide general management roles in all areas in other words the director of operations should ensure that the macro manages all products and service in a firm as a whole. Further, inventory management is also one of the core roles of an operations manager (Russell et al., 82). Practically, cost effective as well as timely inventory management improves services and saves money. In most cases, the process can be very complex state of affairs, which may involve too much overstock or inadequate stock in the company. There are different concepts that a manager can apply such as Total Quality Management and JIT (Just in Time) approaches. JIT (Just in Time) approach is known to be used in many large manufacturing firms such as Toyota Corporation, which a leading company in the production and manufacturing of vehicles in the world. Due to the application of lean and efficient processes of manufacturing such as JIT, Toyota has maximized its profit over years. The concept of ‘Just in time’ (JIT) manufacturing was introduced by Deming and first implemented extensively in Japan in 1950 is where Toyota is one of its practitioners). The concept calls for stock coming in just when it is needed by the firm, so the stock does not have to sit on a shelf (Russell et al., 87). Therefore, by using such a concept, the operations manager will be allowing the money necessary to buy this stock to be available for the company and its other potential investments remaining up until the last possible moment, which can have the considerable impact on a firm’s bottom line. Although this may not be the method of inventory chosen by a company, it is necessary for the manager to have good control over inventory in order to remain competitive in the market or industry since companies are favoring leaner companies instead of running to capacity, which is an important issue in operations management. An operations manager is also tasked to ensure efficient logistics and transport management in a company (Russell et al., 92). Managing transport and logistics involve ensuring smooth flow of goods and services from the suppliers to the company, throughout the firm and then to the end customer. Since this role falls under supply chain, the operations manager must understand the movement of raw materials, production process, and the distribution to the customers. Therefore, it is the responsibility of operations manager timely delivery of materials and final products in the company are adhered. However, this does not mean that the manager should disregard the quality levels and standards set by the company and the industry. Additionally, an operations manager is also expected to ensure proper management of company’s’ facilities (Russell et al., 94). Notably, proper management of operations depends on how the manager is able to provide good leadership aimed at ensuring that all facilities such as computers, buildings, equipment, and others are taken good care of. However, this depends on the kind of facilities or business a company is involved in. Although sales and marketing may be seen as a separate component in relation to the roles of operations manager, the manager is expected to analyze the feedback from customers on marketing strategies that have been implemented by the company (Russell et al., 94). Marketing research and comments from customers are important factors in creating a successful marketing program for a company. They determine the strategies that should be adopted, reviewed or any new way of marketing or selling products of the company. They play a critical role in the development of new products of services, which should be based on the demands and needs of customers. Therefore, by closely working with the marketing team, an operations manager can help a company achieve its goals as well as fulfilling customer’s needs. Further, an operations manager is tasked to ensure that the financial position of a company is healthy by working together with the finance department (Russell et al., 96). Provision of budget information for the company is one of the core mandates of an operations manager. For example, an operations manager needs to provide estimated costs for each phase in a specific operation. The objective of such information is to give feed accountants with necessary financial estimates, which should be considered in the preparation of budgets. The information provided by an operations manager is also instrumental in determining the profit of loss margins within a given business period. Moreover, although operations anger is not a human resource officer, one is expected to work in liaison with the department of human resource to ensure smooth, transparent, and efficient process of recruitment, placement and all aspects of staffing issues (Russell et al., 97). For example operations manager should be in opposition to providing the optimum number of employees required in a given field as well as provided the roles or responsibilities expected from the recruits. Understandably, human resource department may not be well informed about the exact type of employees required, which should be done in the operations department. The provision of such information is critical to making sure that all activities in a firm are coordinated. Conclusion The roles and responsibilities of an operations manager are mostly concerned with the analysis of companies’ internal processes to enhance organizational performance. Based on the above analysis, it is clear that the roles of an operations manager are diverse, and the position requires that one possesses wide range of knowledge, skills, and experiences. However, this may depend on the size of a firm as well the organizational culture and practices. Challenges Facing Operation Managers As observed above, operation managers play a central role in the stabilization of an organizational procedures and policies across different business areas such as planning, human resources, quality control, finance, and technology (Cooke, 52). Notably, there are many challenges faced by operation managers in the field of operation management. Further, operation managers need to equip themselves with skills and knowledge that should cut across all the business functions, beyond the operational responsibilities. Therefore, for one to be an efficient operation manager there is need to understand the whole business flows, the customers, the products, the operation, the people and the technology. Admittedly, in most of the small businesses, the owner of the business or the general manager always assumes the role of an operation manager. In such businesses, the main work is overseeing the firm’s strategic approach to its on-site operations. The following section seeks to discuss the challenges that a new operation manager may face at a workplace. Understandably, among the major challenges any operations manager face at the workplace is the balancing of competing practices (Cooke, 26). Notably, it is not easy for an operations manager to manage a competing business practices within an organization. For example, the finance function in a given organization may prefer to communicate through email while human resources director prefers to communicate through written memos. In this case, an operations manager can find it challenging to use different forms of communication to different personnel of departments in a single organization. Therefore, the existence of differences in business processes and procedures can lead to detrimental effect on the performance of an organization and more so on the operations. Consequently, the effectiveness and efficiency of delivering quality services or products is highly affected. In most cases, such problems in firms come due to lack of or poor communication processes, which may further hamper the processing of the payment of invoices or orders. Although there are different approaches that an operations manager can solve such an issue, it is advisable that one institutes company-wide standards that will provide common procedures in carrying out operations in an organization. Further, it is important to understand that even in small business where one person carries out multiple functions; all team members should understand the policies, procedures, and general rules in the organization in order to minimize competing interests and practices. The main responsibility of an operation manager to ensure that organizational members are following the same policies, using the same methods, and communicating openly. Maintaining and ensuring sustainability is another challenge that is faced by operations managers (Cooke, 37). One of the main responsibilities of the operations manager is to create a long-term employee and customer strategies that would acknowledge the impact of an organization on the cultural, social and economic environment. The objective of such strategies is also to ensure solid and sustained business relationship among stakeholders in business. Currently, many companies are adopting “green” environmentally friendly policies in order to ensure sustainability of not only businesses but also good relationship with a given community. Additionally, companies are embracing such strategies in order to eliminate waste and turn business attention to minimizing the negative effects on the environment, which harms the well-being of local consumers. In most cases, an operations manager may find it challenging develop business policies or legal framework will encourage transparency in order to push for sustainability (Cooke, 71). However, such a challenge is mostly experienced by operation managers who are in small business since their work environments tend to be more insular compared to large corporations. Corporate reporting is one of the greatest challenges that operations managers face (Cooke, 39). Notably, in most firms operations managers are responsible for corporate reporting which includes the compilation of performance and financial data, the communication of the same data to different stakeholder’s as well regular audits of the financial books of an organization. In this corporate reporting, challenges can arise when the company or business has not kept accurate or current records. The problem can be more challenging to the manager to great corporations where financial accounts are complicated. However, even in small business setting, record keeping can sometimes take a back seat to much more pressing concerns such as keeping production levels high and meeting customer demands. Nonetheless, complete and full record keeping on profits and losses as well as expenses and sales goals is crucial in assessing the firm's long-term viability. In many ways, establishment and management of sustainable social responsibility activities is also a big challenge that all managers especially in the big organizations grapple with (Cooke, 43). Social responsibility function looks at different ways in which an operations manager needs to apply in order to win the trust of the community by giving back to the society. However, social responsibility could be one of the new elements in the modern management as well as among operation managers (Mahadevan, 39).While there is the need to increase organization’s profits as well as returns to shareholders, the activity, and actions of the operation must not result in severe impact on the community or social environment whether in the globally or country. In most cases, organizations get involved with nonprofit organizations, sponsorship of sports events or volunteering in local schools, among others. Although for an operations manager these kinds of activities may be challenging to organize, they give the community a sense of belonging when buying products or services from a company. Therefore, social responsibility activities, as forms of marketing and public relations, help to raise the level of reputation of an organization making it challenging n for a manager to balance between the policy of a firm and the responsibilities that should be taken while at the same time maintaining a healthy financial position. Addressing the Main Issues Evidently, for any operations manager, the above issues could be challenging when trying to solve in an organization. However, solving any organizational problem requires the identification of the cause of the problem before outlining the solutions (Cooke, 64). As an operation manager, I would use the theory of constraints in solving most of the main issues. The following section seeks to discuss the theory of constructs and bribery explaining how it can be applied in solving the aforementioned operations managers’ challenges. Application of Theory of Constraints-A Simplified Roadmap The Theory of Constraints is a systematic and methodology for the identification of the most critical limiting factors (constraints) that obstruct a company from achieving the set goals of objectives (Cox et al., 62). The theory seeks to ensure that the limiting factor is systematically improved until its impact on the achievement of goals is as limited as possible. Although the application of constraints theory is a complex process, the five simple steps will be used to explain how the challenges can be handled which include, the identification of the constraint, exploiting the constraint, subordinating and synchronizing to the constraint, elevating performance of the constraint, and repeating the process. Identifying the Constraint Identification of the constraint involves knowing the cause of the problem of a challenge in an organization (Cox et al., 65). Understandably, there are different ways in which an operations manager can identify constraints, which depends on some factors such the issues, industry, and all other variables that are involved. For example, if a problem has occurred in a manufacturing process, an operations manager may be forced to review the entire process to identify the constraint. In some instances, an operations manager may only observe randomly and understand where the problem is originating. Additionally, an operations manager can initiate group or individual interviews as well as using questionnaires as a way of generating information. In most complex situations, an operations manager can decide to form a committee of experts to carry out special investigation on a problem (Cox et al., 66). However, an expert or two could as well be tasked to conduct special assessment of an issue and prepare a report, which should be handled by the operations manager or other relevant bodies. In order to identify the problem of competing practices such as in communication, a director of operations can decide to form a committee of experts from different departments who would be tasked to review the communication process and information flow in an organization. At the same time, an operations manager can have a discussion with senior management in order to see the form of communication modes each prefers. Exploiting the Constraint The objective of this step is to make immediate good of the identified constraint (Cox et al., 69). In this way, an operations manager is expected to use available resources and apply them to minimize the limitations created by the constraint. For instance, if an operations manager realizes that the business’s sustainability is threatened because there is no close relationship or attachment with its customers, he may decide to allocate every department with a suggesting box where customers can drop their suggestions. The opinions can be picked and analyzed by the relevant personnel in the company. Subordinate and synchronize to the Constraint Subordinate and synchronize to the constraints provides for the review of more alternatives that support the limitation of the constraint in achieving a given objective (Cox et al., 25). In these cases, an operations manager needs to look at different factors that contribute to the “limiting” aspects of a constraint. The objective of this stage is to ensure that the solution provided in the second stage has factored in other options. In other words, the step ensures that all possible solutions to the problems are considered in the process. For example, in order to have a good reputation with the public and assure the management on the sustainability of the business, an operations manager may wish to organize and invite the community members to share their experience with the support team. Additionally, besides ensuring that report writing is highly scrutinized, an operations manager can decide or recommend starting an intermediary body of experts who can be reviewing any complex information before it is released to the relevant personnel of departments in order to smoothen the corporate reporting process. Elevating Performance of the Constraint Elevating the performance of the constraints entails the inclusion of more substantive changes in order to break the constraint (Cox et al., 71). In this stage, the step that an operations manager should take requires significant investment in times of money and time. Therefore, the elevation of performance will need a collective approach such as the hiring of more staff or equipment to improve product quality. The objective of this step is to ensure that all investments in solving the problem are evaluated for effectiveness by using different methods such as throughput accounting metrics. In most of the challenges mentioned above including corporate practices, sustainability issues, corporate reporting and social responsibility, require long term solution strategies especially reviewing and improving organizational policies. Repeating the Process As the name suggests, the objective of this step is to ensure that the Five Focusing Steps are not implemented as a one-off improvement project, but as a continuous improvement process (Cox et al., 76). In case a constraint has been broken by applying long-term measures, an operations manager should understand that new constraints will arise in the strategies being applied, which should make the manager repeat the process. Additionally, if the constraint has not been broken, more still have to be done including ensuring that the constraint has been correctly identified. For example, an operations manager should expect challenges when formulating new policies to reduce communication failure in an organization. On the other hand, to be certain that the constraint in the “corporate practices” was correctly identified, the manager will be expected to review the entire process. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, it is evident that there are many challenges that operations manager face. Some of the challenges outlined above include difficult corporate practice, ensuring sustainability of business, inefficiencies in corporate reporting, and social responsibilities. In order to solve such problems, the above section has used a simplified form of theory of constraints through five steps. The critical point for any operations manager to note is that constraints are present in every project, which makes the application of the theory of constraints a continuous process. Works Cited Cooke, James T. H. Operations Management: The Art & Science of Making Things Happen: What the Business Schools Don't Teach You to Survive and Flourish. , 2012. Print. Cox, James F, and John G. Schleier. Theory of Constraints Handbook. , 2010. Print. Mahadevan, B. Operations Management: Theory and Practice. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2010. Print. Russell, Roberta S, Bernard W. Taylor, Ignacio Castillo, and Navneet Vidyarthi. Operations Management: Creating Value Along the Supply Chain. , 2014. Print. Read More