Designing the Operation
Operations management is a strategic function in organizations that adds value to customers and allows businesses to successfully produce goods and deliver services. Operational decisions determine how well these goods and services meet the needs of the organization's target market, and consequently, whether the organization will be able to survive over the long-term .
Smooth Landing
Operations management plays a key role in the success in airline companies.
If the organization has made mostly good operational decisions in designing and executing its transformation system to meet the needs of customers, its prospects for long-term survival are greatly enhanced.
Operations management and planning are common in industries such as the airlines, manufacturing companies, service provider organizations, the military, and government. Some examples of management and planning include:
- Scheduling airlines, including both planes and crew
- Deciding the appropriate place to site new facilities such as a warehouse, factory, or fire station
- Managing the flow of water from reservoirs; identifying possible future development paths for parts of the telecommunications industry
- Establishing the information needs and appropriate systems to supply them within the health service
- Identifying and understanding the strategies adopted by companies for their information systems
Operational Decisions
As mentioned, operations decisions have both long-term and short-term impacts on the organization's ability to produce goods and services, and can provide added value to customers and employees. Operations management touches upon multiple areas of a business, from engineering and research & development, to human resources and accounting. Likewise, the decisions management makes when parceling technological, monetary, and people resources across the organization typically falls under the following areas:
- Inventory decisions
- Capacity decisions
- Quality decisions
- Scheduling decisions
- Process decisions
- Technology decisions
- Location decisions
Most often when a company sets operational goals and objectives, they are considered relatively short term.