Operations Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 4

Operations Management - Essay Example 1. Introduction This report elaborates the operations management process at Green Life, a firm that is into production of vegetables and raising turkeys. This report highlights the significance main critical functions of operations and aims to reinforce the fact that operations management is critical to success of any business. This is accomplished on the basis of three main competitive dimensions, operations effectiveness, customer management and product innovation. The concept integrates 8 Ms of operations management, which are the determinants of business performance. 1.1 About the business Green Life Inc. deals with growing vegetables and raising turkeys. The business peaks during Christmas. These products are sold on retail basis as well as supplied to other shops on wholesale basis. For this, an operations strategy that would integrate appropriate production based on previous sales and demand would help in optimizing the production, which would maximize profits and minimize los s from wastage through wasteful activities as well as wastage of products resulting from storage, delivery or overproduction. Setting up these operations is a highly challenging task and involves a myriad of interdependent activities and issues for the operations manager, all of which need to be addressed at the same time in order to ensure a successful business as well as maximum customer satisfaction. 1.2. Operations management: Operations management comprises of all activities that are required for production of specific goods or services. These activities include planning, designing, and the production process; integration of marketing, finance, human resources and strategy (Brown, 2000). The production/operations processes involve inputs, which include the 8 Ms such as money, material, machines, manpower, management, markets, methods and messages (Nel, 2007). The inputs are processed in someway through series of preplanned activities in order to produce desired outputs, which c an be in the form of completed parts, products, chemicals, service to customers, completed paperwork etc. Operations management also involves provisions and processes for storage of inputs as well as outputs (Shim & Siegel, 1999). An illustration of this transformation process is shown in appendix 1. 2. Competitive elements in OM: Adopting competitive dimensions will reinforce the organization’s value by choosing distinct activities or initiatives that can deliver unique mix of outputs. These outputs may include value for money to the customer, customer service, quality products etc other than the main products. These can be achieved by designing the right strategy that cad deliver operational efficiency and high-quality products. Chase (2006) identifies three major components for strategy namely, operations effectiveness, customer management and product innovation. Operations effectiveness refers to the core business processes needed to run the business. Business processes i nclude all business functions from taking customer orders, handling returns, manufacturing, marketing, delivery of finished products etc. Customer management refers to understanding and maintaining customer relationships by meeting customer demands and expectations. Product innovation refers to development of