Production and operations management oversees the basic business model of producing a product that will satisfy a customer need and after manufacturing will thus include the logistics of distribution, marketing and other factors. Production and operations management thus is an overall concept that delivers a needed product or service to where the product or service is needed.
Production and operations management will start with a supply and demand review to ensure that the product to be manufactured or the service to be provided has its own inherent sustainable future. Essentially, production and operations management takes inputs and turns them into successful outputs in various stages during the manufacturing and operating process. For this to be effective, all operating costs must be considered including machinery, the logistics of product delivery and of course, staff wages. These elements as well as the actually determination as to the viability of the product itself are all part of production and operations management.
Of course, the ‘production’ side of production and operations management could include less tangible products such as services offered. These could simply be after-sales service or may be services such as team motivation’, ‘communication skills’ and so on. the resulting ‘product’ would obviously be the successful implementing of any of these management ideas with a team or group project.
Production and operations management examples:
Tangible:
A cheese production factory would use the inputs of milk and rennet etc. to output a final saleable cheese through the transformative process of the manufacturing process. Here, we see tangible inputs resulting in tangible outputs.
Less Tangible:
The input of a motivational coach will hopefully lead to increased motivation and company success through the transformative process of team bonding exercises and seminars.
These two very basic examples show the endless possibilities when it comes to production and operations management. For any venture, business or otherwise, to become successful the production and operations management team must include all tangible and intangible elements from initial raw materials, the transformation process and the logistics of product delivery as the final output.
Ultimately, for production and operations management to be successful there must be an initial stage of determining the likely success or failure of the product, the adherence to an overall mission statement to prevent fragmentation within a team and an agreement on the product delivery, back up plans and how one should determine whether or not the venture has been successful.
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