Operations Management Principles - Research Paper Example

? Operations Management Principles Management is all about planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. It is responsible for the wellness of the company or organization to attain its goals. Within that discipline, a sub-discipline called operations management surfaces as a very important practice to enhance the smallest details in the activities conducted in an organization. Several concepts were then used in the paper to explain the actions to be done in the four given situations. The study is then backed-up by websites pertaining to management and operations management to verify the claims and explanations rendered by the author on the paper presented. Operations Management Principles Management has always been important to businesses and sustainability of organizations nowadays. All the functions and activities in a group of people must have proper management to ensure the success and that efforts given will not be put to waste. It also allows people to coordinate with one another in working and achieving certain goals. Management can be considered to be a field of study, a class of people, and a process. Management as a field of study means focusing on the principles, functions and techniques in the practice of that profession. Management may pertain to a class or level of people which can be seen in all organizations. They are responsible for practicing the managerial activities while process is the managerial activities itself. The activities involve POSDICON or planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling (Thenmozhi, n.d., Slide 2). Management can be compared to investment as its goal is to maximize the results from the resources used. It focuses on getting the highest possible return from all resources involved in the process (McCrimmon, 2011). In simple terms, management is concerned with how things are accomplished. It involves the ways on how a group or individuals get the set goals which is said to be both an art and a science (Kadiwala, n.d.). Management is considered as an art when it focuses on the method of doing things. When management is considered as an art, it must be able to apply the skills needed by a person on certain practice and can be enhanced through experience. It requires the manager to use his knowledge, experience and skills in making solutions to existing problems. Ernest Dale even pointed out that management involves more art than science since the managerial abilities is owned by personnel that requires thinking. On the other hand, management is considered as a science when it involves a system which means the discipline is an organized body of knowledge following certain verified principles and outcomes. It should be able to prove results as true in any kinds of situations. It is different from physical sciences which are very specific and exact since management involves people and human behavior is changing and hard to predict making management to be categorized under social sciences (Khandkar, n.d.). Now that management is thoroughly discussed, operations management would be the next to be defined. Operation management concentrates on managing processes to create desired outcomes and products. Product development, production and distribution are under the focus of that discipline or profession. It is also associated with process controls like inventory control and quality control. Purchases must be studied thoroughly as to be exact with the needed amount of products to be made. Processes are also analyzed and studied to ensure their effectiveness. In that discipline, standards and measurements are needed to enhance the performance of the internal processes. The way operations management is observed in a business depends upon the industry in which the organization falls under (McNamara, n.d.). Usually, operations managers perform the following tasks: budget preparations for programs, company programs for the company, inventory control, logistic responsibilities and employee supervision. Leadership is very important to those people and they should also be able to be good problem solvers. They must also possess more than the average communication abilities. Operation managers then have the responsibility to create a desirable environment for employee improvement catering positive attitude, cooperation, and creativity. They have the responsibility to establish rapport with the employees by having regular meetings and become role models to their subordinates. They also have the role in making operational budgets by computing the previous expenses and knowing the available funds for disposal to provide the needed products of customers. They deal with the wellness of the company like handling customer complaints and hardships of the employees. Those scenarios require certain level of leadership from the operations managers. Decisions must be made promptly with accuracy and efficiency to effectively continue the company operations (Opsman, 2010). Four situations are then used in the paper to apply the principles on operations management. Each situation requires detailed explanation on the principles observed. The first situation involves a race car crew. The closed track race car pit crew has the following skills: change tires, fill the gas tank, adjust the suspension, do minor body work, and tune the engine in 17 seconds. Despite of those skills, the work may take up to three days before it is completely finished when done at a local auto dealer. For that situation, SMED is needed to explain the operations management principle applied. SMED means Single Minute Exchange of Die which is a tool for quick changeovers to lessen the downtime of equipments and add more time on process performance. Techniques are used to boost the efficiency in improving procedures (ThroughPut Solutions, n.d.). According to Systems2win (n.d.), an excel sheet or template can be used to reduce the time spent on the process dramatically. The sheet shows the performance on each of the detailed tasks to complete a whole process. The workflow can be easily analyzed, evaluated and modified by using a tool in charting the work performance for specific tasks. In reducing the process time, it is necessary to take note of the findings of Shigeo Shingo wherein he divided the tasks into internal and external in the process. He later discovered that about half of those tasks conducted occur while the machine is not performing. He then took note of planning as an important step for time reduction by making the tasks perform that do not need the machine to stop to be done simultaneously while the machine is running. Many factors are considered to affect the process like having one person to perform the process, time pressure is absent, setting up is done only after the process, the setup time is part of the process, and other reasons (Nielsen, 2008). In the case of the pit crew, an auto dealer must have more than one who can perform almost exactly as the crew provided in the situation. Also, tasks that can be done while the equipment work must be simultaneously conducted to save time. The second situation also uses the same principle as the first one. The situation is about jet luggage. The luggages are placed in big aluminum containers loaded onto the plane while smaller planes have been loaded with one bag at a time. Perhaps to earn more money and save from expenses, the luggage should be put on the big containers on big planes by bulk rather than having smaller planes with smaller capacity. If ever smaller planes already exist in an airplane company, they must be able to simultaneously load the big and the small planes. The third situation involves the manufacturing fashion products such as sweaters for women wherein the manufacturer only adds colors to the products once orders are made instead of making use of forecast for finishing the whole production process. The style used in that process is the so-called virtual-build-to-order wherein the system allows the manufacturer to make products without any finishing touches, creating inventories for those available stocks and providing the customers with the fittest product for their needs. Once chosen, the finishing touches commence. That business strategy attracts groups that are involved with mass customization. That allows changes on the product specification and cut customer waiting times. Flexibility is offered for both the businesses and the customers at hand (Brabazon and MacCarthy, 2004, p. 155). Lastly, a situation involves a big insurance company which usually operates the home casualty claims for three weeks, but was able to do it within 30 minutes for the small number of victims of a hurricane. Perhaps the product life cycle had some loops and twists within it that allowed the insurance company to process the claims very fast. The four process concepts that were employed are “modularization, mass customization, the customer order decoupling point, and postponement,” (Dong, 2010). Causal loop diagram has been used by the company to check out the relationships and causality in the concepts presented and looks for ways to meet the two benefits which are cost reduction and customer value enhancement (Dong, 2010). References Brabazon, P. and MacCarthy, B. (2004). Virtual-build-to-order as a mass customization order fulfillment model. Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications, 12 (2), 155 – 165. Retrieved from http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/524/1/VBTO_for_MC.pdf Dong, S. (2010). The usefulness of modularization, mass customization, postponement and customer order decoupling point across the product life cycle. Retrieved from http://www.essays.se/essay/da60b9a821/ Kadiwala, S. (n.d.). Definition of management. Indian Child. Retrieved from http://www.indianchild.com/management/what-is-management.htm Khandkar, S. (n.d.). Management is an art as well as science. Publish Your Articles. Retrieved from http://www.publishyourarticles.org/knowledge-hub/business-studies/management- is-an-art-as-well-as-science.html McCrimmon, M. (2011). What is management? Leadersdirect. Retrieved from http://www.leadersdirect.com/what-is-management McNamara, C. (n.d.). Operations management. Free Management Library. Retrieved from http://managementhelp.org/operationsmanagement/index.htm Nielsen, A. (2008). Shingo's insight: separate internal end external to reduce setup by half. SMED Setup Reduction. Retrieved from http://setupreduction.blogspot.com/2008/09/ shingos-insight-separate-internal-end.html OpsMan. (2010). Operations manager and operations management: Definition of the field. Operations Manager. Retrieved from http://www.operationsmanager.com/what-is- operations-management/operations-manager-and-operations-management-definition/ System2win. (n.d.). Quick changeover - SMED setup reduction. Retrieved from http://www.systems2win.com/solutions/SMED.htm Thenmozhi, M. (n.d.). Management concepts and fundamentals [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/IIT-MADRAS/Management_Science_I/slides/ 1_1s.pdf ThroughPut Solutions. (n.d.). Single Minute Exchange of Die (S.M.E.D.). Lean Manufacturing Training, Help, Resources, and Implementation Services. 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