MGMT20130 | Latest Trends in Operations Management

Apart from being flexible, another crucial aspect covered by operations management team is total quality management. This factor helps the organization to retain its existing as well as potential customers by delivering adequate quality products. Due to increasing competition in the business environment, it is required for every organization to maintain quality of their products to defend its acquired position in the target market along with gaining competitive advantage. Apart from this, quality management also helps the organization build its effective position in the global market. Maintaining the quality of products along with adopting unique measures on regular basis for the motive of enhancing the quality of products, organizations could easily attain customer satisfaction. Improving quality of goods and services is a never ending quest, thus, it is essential for the organization to maintain the quality of their goods and services in order to stay in competitive place along with gaining competitive advantage (Giannakis & Papadopoulos, 2016).

Time reduction is another crucial objective for every organization and it is one of the primary factors of operations management in terms of making their products and services effective enough in comparison to their competitors’ products. Along with maintaining the quality of their products and services, organizations are required to reduce the delivery time period so that products could be delivered quickly with the same quality which is an essential component of gaining competitive edge over other firms (Jasti & Kodali, 2015). Another crucial segment for operations management is worker involvement and under this aspect, organizations are required to follow the recent trends for enhancing their efficiency. Worker involvement in decision making processes helps the organization to gain their set outcomes and it also helps the organization to generate numerous resolutions for the challenges faced by employees. Employee involvement is also known as the employee empowerment through which bond between employees and employer gets strong which directly improves organizational efficiency. Interaction between employees helps the organization to execute the assigned tasks in an appropriate manner through which set goals and objectives could be attained easily (Haksever & Render, 2018).

Business process re-engineering involves drastic measures and techniques through which company’s performance could be enhanced. This concept focuses on rectifying the glitches in the existing business processes. Along with this, BPR also involves changing the whole business process in order to match up with the dynamic environment of business. The next trend in the operations management is globalisation due to which organizations are required to expand their business functionalities in the international and in domestic markets for the motive of uplifting their profitability and revenues. With the expansion of business, organization could develop its effective position in the global marketplace. With the effect of globalisation, industry rivalry has been increased due to which every company is coming with a unique technique and measures for the objective of gaining competitive edge over each other (Harvey, Heineke & Lewis, 2016).

Operational strategies

Primary role of operation management is to convert inputs in effective outputs so that customer’s requirements could be attained. In relevance to this, operational strategies are adopted so that the tasks could be executed in an effective and in appropriate manner so that the expectations of management in relevance to the outcomes could be matched up. With regards to the attainment of competitive advantage, organizations are seeking for new and advanced strategies in order to attain overall success of their business. As strategies are required for attaining mission and goals of the organization, in the same manner, for enhancing overall business performance, organizations are required to adopt appropriate and effective strategies which are known as operational strategies. These strategies are directly linked with the organisational performance so that these strategies should be implemented in an appropriate manner (Heizer, Render, Munson & Sachan, 2017). Following are certain effective strategies through which organizational functionalities could be enhanced along with executing the tasks of the organization for the attainment of positive outcomes:

Lean production 

Lean production system is the best approach for enhancing efficiency of organization with the available resources in limited period of time. It is adopted for generating high outcomes with the utilisation of few resources and by reducing the waste which generated during the manufacturing process. Along with the high returns, quality is not compromised due to which an organization could easily uplift its performance (Ezema, Okafor & Okezie, 2016). Lean manufacturing system is flexible enough and it is user friendly, thus, there is no requirement for providing training to the employees for accomplishing the assigned tasks during lean production process. Main factor which needs to be considered during executing organizational tasks is reducing the waste generation along with enhancing the predacity of organization. This approach is beneficial for both job productions as well as for the mass production which ultimately enhances capacity of organization with regards to the fulfilment of target audience’s demands and wants (Hitt, Carnes & Xu, 2016).

Just-in-Time production

This is another effective approach in operations management. Core objective of this approach is to enhance the organizational efficiency as well as developing an effective position amongst the target marketplace. JIT is a pull system of production which is implemented when actual demand arises for the particular products. Primary objective of this production system is to reduce waste along with acquiring higher customer satisfaction. When an organization is applying this production system, goods are only produced when firm receives the demand for the particular products. Only certain level of quality is being manufactured in this process. All resources such as raw materials, human resources, etc. are kept in minimum quantity in order to avoid unnecessary cost as it directly affects cost of production. Main concern for this production system is enhancing efficiency of organization it could only be implemented with adequate planning (Hitt, Xu & Carnes, 2016). A small glitch in the plan could affect whole manufacturing process through which outcomes will get affected. This type of production system is adopted by mainly big manufacturing industries such as car manufacturing industry. When a new car model is launched in particular market, number of units are pre-decided which will be introduced in the market. In this scenario, further production is executed when demand for that particular car gets increased. Suppliers of also plays vital role in executing JIT production system as they are required to deliver required raw materials and other resources in order to gain positive outcomes (Hopkin, 2018).

Computer Aided Manufacturing 

Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) is software which helps engineers manufacturing product components. This tool is basically a programming tool under which designs of products could be made through which final product could easily be produced. Computer aided design (CAD) program is one of the effective measure which is used for manufacturing physical models of the products. CAM concentrates on real life versions of the components which are designed in a software package. Thus, engineers and production managers could showcase all available options to the top level management so that one of the best alternatives could be adopted in order to produce goods and service as per consumer’s demands and wants. This strategy plays vital role in producing all products and services with same specifications and effectiveness. Ultimately, this strategy helps in enhancing organizational performance along with gaining competitive advantage (Kato, Nakajima, Saito, Okitsu, Shiga & Miki, 2015).

Internal communications

Satisfied employees act as an asset for the organization and in terms of satisfying employees, organization requires analysing their requirements so that those could be fulfilled. Primary step which management could take for satisfying employees is encouraging internal communication. Peer-to-peer communication helps employees to enhance their confidence and morale through which outcomes could easily be enhanced (Zhang, Zhang, Wang, Sun & Yang, 2015). Internal communication system could be introduced at workplace by various ways such as by introducing personal instant messaging platform, adaptation of social media platforms, etc. These platforms also help the employees in relation with communicating with the top level management without any barrier. Thus, it helps the organization to enhance its efficiency along with enhancing efficiency for the employees. Working together, whether through mobile collaboration or in person, promotes productivity and develops relationships between team members (Laudon & Laudon, 2016).

Automation

Automation is another crucial aspect through which organization could easily executes its functions in an appropriate manner. Adaptation of automation procedures in the operations management helps the organization to execute its functionalities with the objective to gain positive outcomes. Automation saves money, increase efficiency when it comes to the all areas of operation management. Operations management is the function of converting inputs into useful output through which customer satisfaction could be attained. For example, when an organization adopts automation in its operation management, it reduces the requirement of human resources along with enhancing the predacity. This helps the organization to provide sufficient resources to its employees to generate creative and innovative ideas through which organizational performance could easily be enhanced. Apart from this, when a company focuses on customer satisfaction, the primary tool adopted is the getting feedbacks from the customers. In order to provide prompt response, rather assigning one human resource to answer all customer’s quires, automation process will be implemented which will provide response to the customers stating that within a particular period of time, company’s representative will get in touch with the consumer. This helps the organization to develop trust level amongst the customers which ultimately helps in enhancing customer satisfaction (Longoni & Cagliano, 2015).

Performance measurement 

Detailed analytics helps the organization to gather relevant information regarding scope of improvement in certain areas for improving customer service. Performance measurement tools help the organization to gain relevant information about the employees’ performance as well as of the whole department’s performance. With the outcomes, organizations could easily evaluate the effectiveness of its employees and of the other departments through which management could take further decisions for accomplishing future tasks. In order to evaluate the performances, mobile collaboration apps allow organizations to see which employees are actively engaged in collaboration, and which may require encouragement or assistance (Smith, Maull & CL Ng, 2014).

Recommendations for improving operations management 

As operations management is a crucial factor for enhancing growth and development opportunities for organization, it is also required for the organization to generate new ideas so that advanced approaches could be adopted for enhancing the performance of organization. With regards to improving the effectiveness of operations management, it is required to analyse the conditions of market, business needs, employees’ needs, cultural factor and the social influences in order to accomplish the tasks in an appropriate manner. The major objective of operations management is to gain competitive edge over each other in relevance with the organizational requirements (Walker, Chicksand, Radnor & Watson, 2015).

It is necessary for the organization to determine its internal needs so that efficiency of the organization could be enhanced. Primary objective of the organization is to gain competitive advantage, enhancing sales, revenues and profitability. There are various ways through which organization could easily enhance its operations management’s efficiency. It has been recommended to the organizations that adaptation of innovative measures and creative techniques helps the organization to perform its operations in an effective manner. With the effective operations management, organization could easily manage its tasks so that the set goals could be attained. In relation with this, it is necessary for the organization to evaluate its current strategies, plans and policies so that error could be identified. This helps the organization to determine its own efficiency so that the appropriate strategies could be adopted in order to accomplish the goals and objectives (Welford, 2016).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it can be included that organizations are required to adopt and maintain an effective operations management so that their efficiency could be enhanced. Along with this, it also helps the organization to develop adequate brand image in the target market. In relation to this, employees also plays vital role and to encourage employees, management and team leaders needs to find unique ways so that employees’ efficiency could be enhanced. When an employee is provided with sufficient resources, time and support, they could easily think out of the box through which unique and effective resolutions could be generated. Apart from this, organization could also identify various other measures such as adaptation of new and advanced techniques so that set goals and objectives could be attained (Yoon, Yildiz & Talluri, 2016). 

References

Bromiley, P., & Rau, D. (2016). Operations management and the resource based view: Another view. Journal of Operations Management, 41, 95-106.

Bryson, J. (2017). Effective library and information centre management. Routledge.

Conger, S. (2015). Six sigma and business process management. In Handbook on Business Process Management 1 (pp. 127-146). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Ezema, C. N., Okafor, E. C., & Okezie, C. C. (2016). Agent-Based Simulation and System Dynamic Modelling of Just-In-Time Manufacturing System. International Journal of Technology and Systems, 1(1), 30-47.

Giannakis, M., & Papadopoulos, T. (2016). Supply chain sustainability: A risk management approach. International Journal of Production Economics, 171, 455-470.

Haksever, C., & Render, B. (2018). Service and Operations Management. World Scientific Books.

Harvey, J., Heineke, J., & Lewis, M. (2016). Editorial for Journal of Operations Management special issue on" Professional Service Operations Management (PSOM)". Journal of Operations Management, 42, 4-8.

Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C., & Sachan, A. (2017). Operations management: sustainability and supply chain management, 12/e.

Hitt, M. A., Carnes, C. M., & Xu, K. (2016). A current view of resource based theory in operations management: A response to Bromiley and Rau. Journal of Operations Management, 41(10), 107-109.

Hitt, M. A., Xu, K., & Carnes, C. M. (2016). Resource based theory in operations management research. Journal of Operations Management, 41, 77-94.

Hopkin, P. (2018). Fundamentals of risk management: understanding, evaluating and implementing effective risk management. Kogan Page Publishers.

Jasti, N. V. K., & Kodali, R. (2015). Lean production: literature review and trends. International Journal of Production Research, 53(3), 867-885.

Kato, T., Nakajima, T., Saito, T., Okitsu, J., Shiga, Y., & Miki, Y. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,128,704. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2016). Management information system. Pearson Education India.

Longoni, A., & Cagliano, R. (2015). Environmental and social sustainability priorities: Their integration in operations strategies. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(2), 216-245.

Smith, L., Maull, R., & CL Ng, I. (2014). Servitization and operations management: a service dominant-logic approach. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 34(2), 242-269.

Walker, H., Chicksand, D., Radnor, Z., & Watson, G. (2015). Theoretical perspectives in operations management: an analysis of the literature. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 35(8), 1182-1206.

Welford, R. (2016). Corporate environmental management 1: systems and strategies. Routledge.

Yoon, J., Yildiz, H., & Talluri, S. (2016). Risk Management Strategies in Transportation Capacity Decisions: An Analytical Approach. Journal of Business Logistics, 37(4), 364-381.

Zhang, Y., Zhang, G., Wang, J., Sun, S., Si, S., & Yang, T. (2015). Real-time information capturing and integration framework of the internet of manufacturing things. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 28(8), 811-822.