The Principles of Operation Management

Operation management can be defined as “a configuration of resources combined for the provision of goods or services” (Morris, 1978). It involves planning, organizing, and supervising processes, and make necessary improvements for higher profitability. There must be some adjustment in everyday operations to support the company’s strategic goals, so that they are preceded by deep analysis and measurement of the current processes. Its scope includes among other thing layout of facilities resources, determination of capacity, design of jobs, activity scheduling, quality control, control and planning of inventories. Operation management was known as production management at past which clearly shows its origins in manufacturing. It all began with the division of production, starting as early as the times of ancient craftsmen. As the economies in the developed world were gradually shifting to be service based, all the corporate functions, including product management, started to integrate them.

The service side also began its approach by applying product management principles to the planning and organizing of processes, to reach the point where it made more sense to call it operations management. Now operation management is a multidisciplinary functional area in a company, along with finance and marketing. It makes sure that the materials and labor, or any other input, is used in the most effective and efficient way possible within an organization which help in maximizing the profit. It requires being familiar with a wide range of disciplines. It incorporates general management, factory and equipment maintenance management by different tradition. The operations manager has to know about different things like common strategic policies, basic material planning, manufacturing and production systems, and their analysis which will help them to maximize the profit of their firm. Production and cost control principles are also of important in operation management (htt).

The required skills to perform proper organization management are as follows:

1. Organizational abilities Every organization requires a set of skills from planning and prioritizing through execution to monitor the activities that are going in the organization. These abilities help the manager to achieve productivity and efficiency in the organization.
2. Analytic capabilities/understanding of process There must be good analytical capability. The capability to understand processes in your area often includes a broad understanding of other functions. The deeper understanding capabilities help to run organization in proper manner.
3. Coordination of processes There must be quick decision making capacity in order to solve the problems in systematic manner.
4. People skills The interactions with employees or member of senior management can seriously harm productivity of the organization so an operation manager has to have people skills to properly navigate the fine lines with their colleagues.
5. Creativity Problem solving skills are essential for a creative approach if things don’t go in the right direction. Creativity helps to find new ways to improve corporate performance and solve the problems of the organization.
6. Tech savviness In order to understand and design processes in a time when operations are getting technology dependent, affinity for technology is a skill that can’t be underestimated.

Operations managers have to be familiar with the most common technologies used in their industries. They must have an even deeper understanding of the specific operation technology at their organizations. The ten principles of operation management by Randall Schaeffer:

1. Reality
2.  Organization
3. Fundamentals
4. Accountability
5.  Variance
6. Causality
7. Managed passion
8. Humility
9. Success
10. Change

The 16 principles of operations management by Dr. Richard Schonberger:

1. Team up with customers
2.  Continual, rapid improvement
3.  Unified purpose
4.  Know the competition
5.  Focus
6.  Organize resources
7.  Invest in HR Maintain equipment
8.  Simple “best” equipment
9. Minimize human error
10.  Cut times
11. Cut setup
12. Pull system
13. Total quality control
14. Fix causes
15. Visibility management.