Functions and Activities of Operations Management
August 11th, 2009Leave a commentGo to comments
Operations management involves the management of human,technology and system resources.The operations management functions,like in other management disciplines, include planning,directing,organizing,staffing,motivating and controlling to achieve the set organizational goals.
In addition to the above management functions operation managers perform many other activities as given below.
1. Facility location and lay out design-The facility location activity involves the decision of the location for the facility,manufacturing unit or service outfit,geographically.The layout design determines how the internal facilities (departments,equipments,service stations,workstations etc ) will be arranged. 2. Job design and work measurement-The job design activity involves the structuring of work tasks assigned to an employee and the study of the tasks that make up the job.The work measurement activity involves the timing of the tasks that comprise a job.The job design and work measurement activities are carried out to optimize output.Design of the production processes, type of process design,and investment and economic analysis also studied to achieve maximum productivity 3. Demand forecasting-Organizations need to forecast the demand for their products and services so that all relevant plans can be developed for the future.Operation managers need to estimate future demand as accurately as possible as this will influence not only the requirement of manpower resources but also the utilization of working capital.Various types of quantitative and non-quantitative forecasting techniques are used in operation management. 4. Planning and controlling operations-Planning is the most important function performed by an operations manager.Planning may be long