Week Nine - Operations Management and Supply Chain

Week Nine Weekly Questions

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. Its role is to simply manage the many operations that convert inputs into outputs. OMs role in business includes many interrelated activities, such as forecasting, capacity planning, scheduling, managing inventories, assuring quality, and motivating employees, deciding where to locate facilities and more. (Business information driven systems, Baltzan)

3. Describe the correlation between operations management and information technology :

The correlation between operations management (OM) and information technology is the fact that I.T heavily influences OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality and customer satisfaction. The connection they have is that I.T’s benefits are considerably felt by OM and therefore help OM to set its goals and objectives for the organisation. (Business information driven systems, Baltzan).

4. Explain supply chain management and its role in a business

Supply chain management involves involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability. Its role in the business is to:

- Plan

- Source

- Make

- Deliver

- return

5. List and describe the five components of a typical supply chain

Plan: a company must have a plan for managing all resources that go toward meeting customer demand for goods and services.

Source: companies must carefully choose reliable suppliers that will deliver goods and services required for making products.

Make: companies manufacture their goods or services-this is the most metric-intensive portion of the supply chain

Deliver: often referred to as logistics- the set of processed that plans for and controls the efficient and effective transportation and storage of supplies from suppliers to customers.

Return: .most problematic step of the supply chain. Companies create a network for receiving defective excess products and support customers who have any problems.

6. Define the relationship between information technology and the supply chain.

The relationship between is that Technology advances in the five SRM components have significantly improved companies’ forecasting and business operations. Also, Integrated Systems provide companies with greater visibility over the supply chain inventory levels and finally IT’s primary role is to create integrations or tight process and information linkages between functions within an organization.