1. Define the term operations management?
Operations management (OM) is the management of systems or processes that convert or transform resources (including human resources) into goods and services.
2. Explain operations management’s role in business?
Operations management is responsible for managing the core processes used to manufacture goods and produce services. Typical OM activities within a business include:
- Forecasting
- Capacity Planning
- Scheduling
- Managing Inventories
- Assuring Quality
- Motivating and Training Employees
- Locating Facilities
3. Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology?
Managers can use IT to heavily influence OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality and customer satisfaction. One benefit of IT on OM is in making operational decisions because OM exerts considerable influence over the degree to which the goals and objectives of the organisation are realised.
4. Explain supply chain management and its role in a business?
SCM involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.
SCM software can enable an organisations to generate efficiencies within these steps by automating and improving the information flows throughout and among the different supply chain components.
Efficient and effective SCM systems can enable an organisation to:
- Decrease the power of its buyers
- Increase its own supplier power
- Increase switching costs to reduce the threat of substitute products or services
- Create entry barriers thereby reducing the threat of new entrant
- Increase efficiencies while seeking a competitive advantage through cost leadership
5. List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain
The 5 basic components of supply chain management are:
- Plan: Strategic portion of SCM. A company must have a plan for managing all the resources that go toward meeting customer demand for products and services.
- Source: Companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products.
- Make: This is the step where companies manufacture their products or services.
- Deliver: often referred to as Logistics = the set of processes that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers.
- Return: Typically the most problematic step in the supply chain. Companies must create a network for receiving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delivered products.
6. Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain.
Information technology's primary role in SCM is creating the integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions within a firm- such as marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing and distribution- and between firms, which allow the smooth, synchronized flow of both information and product between customers, suppliers and transportation providers across the supply chain. IT integrates planning, decision-making processes, business operating processes and information sharing for business performance management.
Information technology's primary role in SCM is creating the integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions within a firm- such as marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing and distribution- and between firms, which allow the smooth, synchronized flow of both information and product between customers, suppliers and transportation providers across the supply chain. IT integrates planning, decision-making processes, business operating processes and information sharing for business performance management.
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