Every business is managed through multiple business functions each responsible for managing certain aspects of the business.Figure 1-1 illustrates this by showing that the vice president of each of these functions reports directly to the president or CEO of the company. Marketing is responsible for sales, generating customer demand, and understanding customer wants and needs. Finance is responsible for managing cash flow, current assets, and capital investments. MIS is responsible for managing flows of information. Most of us have some idea of what finance and marketing are about, but what does operations management do? Figure 1-1 Organizational chart
Operations management (OM) is the business function responsible for managing the process of creation of goods and services. It involves planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling all the resources needed to produce a company’s goods and services. Because operations management is a management function, it involves managing people, equipment, technology, information, and all the other resources needed in the production of goods and services. Operations management is the central core function of every company. This is true regardless of the size of the company, the industry it is in, whether it is manufacturing or service, or is for-profit or not-for-profit.
Consider a pharmaceutical company such as Merck. The marketing function of Merck is responsible for promoting new pharmaceuticals to target customers and bringing customer feedback to the organization. Marketing is essentially the window to customers. The finance function of Merck makes sure that they have needed capital for different processes including R&D. However, it is the operations function that plans and coordinates all the resources needed to design, produce, and deliver the various pharmaceuticals to hospitals, pharmacies, and other locations where needed. Without operations, there would be no products to sell