Week 9 - Operations Management and Supply Chain

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 ggods and services.

2. Explain operations managements role in business

Operations management is responsible for managing the core processes used to manufacture goods and produce services.

The scope of OM across the organisation include many activities, including:

• Forecasting
• Capacity Planning
• Scheduling
• Managing Inventory
• Assuring Quality
• Motivating and training employees
• Locating facilities

3. Describe the correlation bewteen operations management and information technology (IT)

The use of IT can heavily influence OM decisions including productivity, costs, flexibility, quality and customer satisfaction. One of the greatest benefits of IT on OM is in making managerial decisions because OM exerts considerable influence over the degree to which the goals and objectives of the organisation are realised. OM information systems are critical for managers to be able to make well informaed decisions

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

Supply chain management involves the management of information flows between and among stages in a supply chain to maximise total supply chain effectiveness and profitability.
Example of supply chain management

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

1. Plan - Have a plan for managing all the resources that go towards meeting customers demand for product and services. Biggest part of planning is developing a set of metrics to monitor the supply chain so that its effecient, cost less and delievers high quality goods.
2. Source - Choosing reliable suppliers to deliever goods. Also to develop a set of pricing, delievery, and payment processeswith suppliers to monitor and improve relationships
3. Make - Where companies manufacture there product. This can include scheduling, testing, packaging and preparing for delievery. It helps measure quality levels, production output and worker productivity.
4. Deliver - commonly reffered to as Logistics. This is where companies must be able to recieve orders from customers, fulfill orders and implement billing and invoicing system for payments
5. Return - Most problematic step in supply chain. Companies must create network for recieving defective and excess products and support customers who have problems with delievered products.

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

As companies evolove the roles of supply chain participants are changing. It is now common for suppliers to be involved in product development and for distributors to act as consultants in brand marketing. Information technology's primary role in supply chain management is creating the intergrations or tight process and information linkages between functions withiin a firm - such as marketing, sales, finance, manufacturing and distribution. Information technology intergrates planning, decision making processes, business operating processes and information sharing for business performance management. Considerable evidence shows that this type of supply chain integration results in superior supply chain capabilities and profits.

Refrence

Baltzan, Phillips, Lynch, Blakey. 2010. Business Driven Information Systems. McGraw Hill. Sydney, Australia.