Business Operations

11 Key excerpts on "Business Operations"

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  Operations Management NQF2 SB

  TVET FIRST

  • M Engelbrecht(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Module 1 2 Topic 1 Roles of an Operations Manager Identify and discuss the roles of an Operations Manager Overview In this Module you will learn how to: identify the roles of a Business Operations Manager. These roles include ensuring that organisational procedures and practices are performed according to qualitative industry standards and ensuring optimal productivity collect and organise, via observation and research, information to clarify the roles of a Business Operations Manager discuss the roles of a Business Operations Manager which may include ensuring that organisational procedures and practices are performed according to qualitative industry standards and ensuring optimal productivity. • • • Module 1 Identify and discuss the roles of an Operations Manager 3 Unit 1.1 The roles of a Business Operations Manager All businesses provide either goods or services. The way in which the business does this is referred to as its operations. Operations can be defined as the recurring activities of an organisation directed toward producing a product or rendering a service. The activities are recurring as it is essential that they are done over and over again, in a certain way which will ensure the success of the operation. These activities may include marketing, sales, production, purchasing, human resources, finance and accounting. Examples: Toyota’s operations consist of producing motor cars and distributing them to showrooms in Southern African and Australia. DSTV’s operations involve transmitting digital television pictures to its paying customers. Checkers’ operations involve the selling of retail goods from its many stores around the country. The business activities, or operations, of these firms are ongoing from month to month. In order for operations to run successfully, they need to be overseen by a trained and dedicated Operations Manager.

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  Operations Management

  An Integrated Approach

  • R. Dan Reid, Nada R. Sanders(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  It is the operations function, however, that plans and coordinates all the resources needed to design, produce, and deliver the merchandise to the various retail locations. Without oper- ations, there would be no goods or services to sell to customers. The role of operations management is to transform a company’s inputs into the fin- ished goods or services. Inputs include human resources (such as workers and managers), facilities and processes (such as buildings and equipment), as well as materials, technology, and information. Outputs are the goods and services a company produces. Figure 1.2 shows this transformation process. At a factory the transformation is the physical change of raw materials into products, such as transforming leather and rubber into sneakers, denim into jeans, or plastic into toys. At an airline it is the efficient movement of passengers and their luggage from one location to another. At a hospital it is organizing resources such as doctors, medical procedures, and medications to transform sick people into healthy ones. Operations management is responsible for orchestrating all the resources needed to pro- duce the final product. This includes designing the product; deciding what resources are needed; arranging schedules, equipment, and facilities; managing inventory; controlling quality; designing the jobs to make the product; and designing work methods. Basically, Operations management (OM) The business function responsible for planning, coordinating, and controlling the resources needed to produce a company’s goods and services. Role of operations management To transform organizational inputs into outputs. FIGURE 1.1 Organizational chart showing the three major business functions President or CEO Operations V.P. of Operations Manages: people, equipment, technology, materials, and information To produce: goods and/or services Marketing V.P. of Marketing Manages: customer demands Generates: sales for goods and services Finance V.P.

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  Essential Guide to Operations Management

  Concepts and Case Notes

  • David Bamford, Paul Forrester(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  1 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT IN CONTEXT

  Introduction

  The aim of any service, public sector or retail or industrial operation is to deliver goods and services of the quality, quantity, cost and availability that will satisfy the customers’ needs while at the same time making most effective use of resources. This can only be achieved by giving attention to the design of products, processes and work for employees, and through competent planning and control. This is what Operations Management is about. This book presents the fundamental principles of operations management in a novel and structured way that is appropriate to the needs of contemporary Operations Managers, and students in this field.

  Operations management covers decision making in the organization, from top level management issues such as developing an operations strategy congruent with the company’s business and marketing strategies, to the immediate control of operations. It is, therefore, more than operational management. Each chapter develops an understanding of the theory and practice of key operational concepts to enable delivery of the strategy.

  The book is structured in a unique manner, to better reflect the concerns of the contemporary Operations Manager in the twenty-first century. The book is based around the conceptual model of operations management.

  The model centres upon the idea that operations management comprises three essential components:

  1. Design of operations processes, products and services, and the work of individuals;
  2. Planning and control of operations once designs are in place and operational; and
  3. Ensuring quality of products and services produced and delivered, and (wherever possible) improving on these.

  However these cannot be addressed in isolation. The essential element in effective operations management is the integration

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  Business Policy and Strategy

  The Art of Competition

  • Chris Chatfield, Cheryl Van Deusen, Steven Williamson, Harold C. Babson(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Auerbach Publications

    (Publisher)

  Among others, it includes designing the product; deciding what resources are needed; acquiring resources; arranging schedules, equipment, and facilities; planning 138 Business Policy and Strategy: The Art of Competition, 7th Edition and controlling production; managing inventory; controlling product qual-ity; and measuring performance. In general, POM is responsible for all aspects of the process of transforming inputs into outputs. Specifically, it must ensure that the transformation process is performed efficiently and that the output is of greater value than the sum of all inputs. Thus, the role of operations is to create or add value. The greater the value added, the more productive a business is. An obvious way to add value is to reduce the cost of activities in the transformation process. Activities that do not add value are considered superfluous and must be eliminated. In addition to value added, production/operations must also be efficient. In other words, all activities must be performed well, and at the lowest possible cost. In summary, an important role of operations is to analyze all activities, eliminate those that do not add value, and restructure processes and jobs to achieve greater efficiency. Of all the business functions, operations are the most diverse in terms of the tasks performed. Production/operations managers hold crucial posi-tions in every firm. The head of the operations function in a company usually holds the title of vice president of operations, vice president of manufacturing, or director of supply-chain operations and generally reports directly to the chief operating officer or the chief executive officer. Middle-level manager positions, including manufacturing manager, operations man-ager, plant manager, quality control manager, etc., fall directly under the vice president level. These managers perform a variety of tasks, such as designing products and processes, ensuring quality, monitoring inventory, and deliv-ering services.

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  Exploring Data and Business Management: How Information Helps in Supervision

  • Richa Tiwari(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Society Publishing

    (Publisher)

  Also, it provides highlights on management for business success, developing a strategic plan. In this chapter, the development of tactical and operational plans has been addressed, such as tactical plans, operational plans, plan for contingencies and cries, contingencies planning, and crisis management. This chapter also explains the importance of management such as adjusting goals, best utilization of resources, reducing cost, increasing efficiency, and surviving in a dynamic environment. 4.1. INTRODUCTION 4.1.1. The Scope of Business When God created the earth, he gave man the permission to subdue the matters in it. God provided all that man would want but now not exactly in their final consumption paperwork besides inside the case of positive end result and vegetation. But essentially, man has to till the soil of the earth, perform a little conversion before he can consume maximum of the assets in earth. This, in truth, marked the origin of commercial enterprise. 4.1.2. Nature of Business According to the dictionary definition, business refers to occupation, buying, and selling. From this description, it becomes clear that business has to do with activities which individuals or groups of individuals perform with the objective of satisfying defined needs. This is a general approach to discussing business as no distinction is drawn between activities performed for-profit and non-profit making. As business students, lecturers, and practitioners, our interest should be in those activities which are profit directed. Boone and Kurts (1976); and Trumpp, Endrikat, and Guenther (2015) upheld this view point while they expressed business as: all income- driven monetary and modern games which give things and administrations vital for a country are living norms. These modern exercises incorporate assembling, conveyance, and proposition of direct contributions likewise sees as conceptualization, and estimation of organization natural by and large execution (Figure 4.1).

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  Operations Management

  An Integrated Approach

  • R. Dan Reid, Nada R. Sanders(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter says that companies often do not understand the differences between operational efficiency and strategy. Operational efficiency is performing operations tasks well, even better than competitors. Strategy, on the other hand, is a plan for competing in the marketplace. An analogy might be that of running a race efficiently, but the wrong race. Strategy is defining in what race you will win. Operational efficiency and strategy must be aligned; otherwise, you may be very efficiently performing the wrong task. The role of operations strategy is to make sure that all the tasks performed by the operations function are the right tasks. Consider a software company that recently invested millions of dollars in developing software with features not provided by competitors, only to discover that these were features customers did not particularly want. Now that we know the meaning of business strategy and operations strategy and their importance, let’s look at how a company would go about developing a business strategy. Then we will see how an operations strategy would be developed to support the company’s business strategy. business strategy A long-range plan for a business. Defines long-range plan for company Defines marketing plans to support the business strategy Business Strategy Marketing Strategy Develops financial plans to support the business strategy Finance Strategy Develops a plan for the operations function to support the business strategy Operations Strategy FIGURE 2.1 Relationship between business and functional strategies Developing a Business Strategy 29 Developing a Business Strategy LEARNING OBJECTIVE Explain how a business strategy is developed. A company’s business strategy is developed after its managers have considered many factors and have made some strategic decisions.

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  Manufacturing Operations Strategy

  Texts and Cases

  • Alex Hill(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  • Executive roles -an executive's role comprises content (both day to day and strategic) and style (the task of managing people). The emphasis in this chapter concerns the strategic role of the operations executive. • Business unit strategy -concerns determining how it competes in its different markets and the mix of market-driven and market-driving scenarios. • Deve l op i ng an operations strategy-operati ons executives need to be proactive rather than reactive in strategy fo rmu lation . As with other funct ional strategies, markets set the agenda and link business objectives through to functional strateg les . • Order-winners and qualifiers -a key dimension in better understanding markets is to distinguish between the role of qualifiers (necessary to get onto and remain on a customer's list of potential suppliers) and order-winners {those criteria that win business from other qualified, potential suppliers). • Outputs of operations strategy-developing a strategy concerns closing the gap in terms of how well operations supports the needs of customers for which it is responsible. Companies invest in a wide range of functions and capabilities in order to design, make and sell products at a profit. Consequently, the degree to which a company's I functions are aligned to the needs of its markets will significantly affect its overall growth in sales and profits. Appropriate investment in processes and infrastructure in operations is fundamental to this success, whereas a lack of fit between these key investments and a company's markets will lead to a business being well wide of the mark. If a firm could change its operations investments without incurring penalties such as long delays and large reinvestments, then the strategic decisions within operations would be of little concern or consequence.

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  Management

  • Ricky Griffin(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  Inefficient or ineffective operations management, on the other hand, will almost inevitably lead to poorer performance and lower levels of both quality and productivity. In an economic sense, operations management creates value and utility of one type or another, depending on the nature of the firm’s products or services. If the product is a physi- cal good, such as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, operations creates value and provides form utility by combining many dissimilar inputs (sheet metal, rubber, paint, internal combustion engines, and human skills) to make something (a motorcycle) that is more valuable than the actual cost of the inputs used to create it. The inputs are converted from their incoming form into a new physical form. This conversion is typical of manufacturing operations and essen- tially reflects the organization’s technology. In contrast, the operations activities of Delta Airlines create value and provide time and place utility through its services. The airline transports passengers and freight according to agreed-upon departure and arrival places and times. Other service operations, such as a Coors beer distributorship or a Zara retail store, create value and provide place and possession utility by bringing together the customer and products made by others. Although the organizations in these examples produce different kinds of products or services, their operations processes share many important features. 2 20-1b Manufacturing and Production Operations Because manufacturing once dominated U.S. industry, the entire area of operations man- agement used to be called “production management.” Manufacturing is a form of business that combines and transforms resources into tangible outcomes that are then sold to others.

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  Essential Guide to Operations Management

  Concepts and Case Notes

  • David Bamford, Paul Forrester, Iain Reid(Authors)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In many operations management textbooks, the term ‘customer’ is widely used to identify the recipients or consumers of the service or product offered. This language, however, can be distracting for many readers, as it appears biased towards private sector businesses. In most public sector and third sector settings, the recipients of the service or product are referred to in more meaningful terms. For example, hospitals treat ‘patients’, care services and consulting companies consider their ‘clients’ and educational institutions teach ‘students’. Although some of these organisations prefer to view end users as customers, many others believe the term does not adequately reflect the nature and complexity of their relationship. By extension, there is often a tendency to regard operations management textbooks, and what is taught in the classroom, as being somewhat irrelevant simply due to the loose use of the term customer, or a failure of the reader or student to grasp the term customer in its more generic sense. In this book, we do use the term customer in its more generic sense in places to refer to the recipient for the sake of brevity, but we have taken the effort at times to stress and remind the reader that operations systems serve clients, patients and students, and whatever other term an organisation might use.

  Principles of Value

  The task of the operations manager can be summarised at a basic level as converting a range of resource inputs (such as budgets, stakeholders, information, expertise and capacity), through a transformation (the operations process), into a range of outputs (products and services, in addition to the achievement of objectives, addressing KPIs, etc.). This is represented by Figure 1.1 .

  Figure 1.1 Input–Transformation–Output Model

  Of course, this needs to be designed with a focus on the value proposition of the transformation process. But what do we mean by value? From an operations perspective, value can be defined as ensuring the economic, ergonomic, aesthetic and technical aspects of the design of the product or service are met. These four elements translate into the operationalisation of processes and systems that will be capable of delivering the required output objectives.

  The various elements that make up the operations function are diverse and complex in nature. The operations manager must possess competencies in human resource management, strategic awareness, product knowledge, systems and organisational design and, at the operating level, planning and control. Moreover, the task of the operations manager is often misunderstood and relegated to a reactive rather than a positive and proactive role within the organisation. To indicate the importance of the operations function to the business, it is useful to identify five KPIs (5KPIs) for any operations system. These are quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost, where:

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  The State of the Art in Small Business and Entrepreneurship

  • Pierre-Andre Julien(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  8Operations management

  “…to whom some could reproach that, since they do not see either end of the joining line between too much and too little, long and short, light and heavy, near and far, and since they recognize neither its end nor its beginning, they judge very uncertainly about the middle.” Michel de Montaigne, “Essai”.

  1. Introduction

  1.1 Definition of operations management (OM)

  Noilet, Kelada and Diorio (1986) gave the following definition of operations management: “A set of planning, organization, command and control activities, to which are sometimes added assurance activities, applicable to production operations. The management activities are aimed at helping achieve the firm’s strategic goals or objectives, through optimal use of the tangible and intangible resources at its disposal. In doing so, the activity managers consider the various internal and external constraints to be respected” (our translation).

  These same authors, at the beginning of their book, state that they have used the terms “production”, “operations” and “production operations” synonymously. Rather than embarking on a discussion of the terminology, the author of this chapter has preferred to suggest that many of the activities and functions of a manufacturing production firm are closely linked, and that most cannot be isolated, in whole or in part, without some difficulty. In addition, to simplify the organization of this chapter on operations and production management

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  Principles of Business Updated, 9th Precision Exams Edition

  • Les Dlabay, James Burrow, Brad Kleindl, , Les Dlabay, James Burrow, Brad Kleindl(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  228 Westend61/SuperStock UNIT 3 Business Operations and Technology 10 Marketing 11 Business and Technology 12 Financial Management 13 Production and Business Operations 14 Risk Management Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 229 Business Vision Businesses perform many functions to produce goods and services. Regardless of the size of the organization, similar business functions are carried out by extractors, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, service providers, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Businesses use marketing to communicate with and deliver value to customers. Financial planning and management ensure adequate resources are available and used efficiently. Computers and other technology increase the speed and accuracy of ever more complex business activities. In this unit you will study some of the most important functions of business and the activities that managers and employees complete for each. Most medium- and large-sized businesses employ workers skilled in a particular type of work. Engineers, maintenance and service personnel, advertising and marketing specialists, accountants, computer technicians, and others complete the day-to-day operations of businesses. All parts of the business must operate effectively and in coordination with each other. Today’s employees need to know how to do their specific work, how to use the tech-nology that is a part of that work, and how their work interfaces with and supports the other activities in the business.

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