Operations Management is the term we use for the management of the resources necessary to produce and deliver the products and services required by customers. These resources include labour, materials and capital equipment.The following definition reflects the nature of Operations management:'Operations management is about the way organizations produce goods and services. Everything you wear, eat, sit on, use, read or knock about on the sports field comes to you courtesy of the operations managers who organized its production. Every book you borrow from the library, every treatment you receive at the hospital, every service you expect in the shops and every lecture you attend at university - all have been produced.' -Slack et al (1995) Operations Management, Pitman Publishing: London. An operation can also be considered as a transformation process: operations are a transformation process as they convert a set of resources (INPUTS) into services and goods (OUTPUTS). These resources may be raw materials, information, or the client itself (p.e. people travelling with an airline). Operations function is important to the organisation because it directly affects how well the organisation satisfies its customers. If we consider the three stages in operations, Input, Transformation and Output, we can classify Input resources in two types: as transforming resources (the staff and facilities) which act upon the transformed resources (materials, information and customers) which are in some way transformed by the operation.Operations interfaces with many different disciplines and many themes are developing which require the support of Operations Management. It also mediates between production system demands and other systems - marketing, purchasing, warehousing/distribution, staff, finance. The management challenge is to ensure that customers' requirements are met while at the same time ensuring that the operating system is run efficiently The r...
