Question

Elaborate your own definition of production operations management, including manufacturing and service operations. Then, assess the implication of technology in your definition. Finally, appraise the impact of your previous responses to your Operations, Technology, and Management Plan development.

Answer 1

Production operations management can be seen as an activity which is utilized for the production distribution and maintaining the products and services. The management under which an organization operates decides the success of that organization. The management team will be responsible for the operations which also incorporates manufacturing and service operations. The main responsibility of an operations manager is to ensure the designing and monitoring and controlling the production outcome. In fact, the identification of customer’s needs and making sure that the produced products are able to fulfil these demands are also included as the responsibility of these managers.

The various responsibilities of a production operations manager are discussed as below:-

1.       Output –The managers are responsible for ensuring the sufficient manufacturing of raw materials into the finished products.

2.       Output Usage –The managers will be responsible for knowing the frequency of product usages, or buying frequency so that they can estimate the output quantity required. In fact, it will change depending upon the nature of product or service.

3.       Work Classification –Managers are also responsible for the division of work responsibilities among the manpower so that the faster production can be ensured with the optimal cost.

Most of the successful organizations are able to come up with the production processes which can fulfil their business requirements including the higher customer satisfaction. For having the customers demand to be met, it is very important for these firms to have the latest technology which can consist of computers, software packaging machines and material, supply chain system, different types of other machines and so on.

In order to make sure that the manpower has the required equipment and supplies for fulfilling the assigned responsibilities and tasks, it is important for the production operations management team to monitor the process each day. If there is a machine which breaks down regularly, it must be replaced in order to ensure optimal production outcome. In fact, a daily quota is decided by most of the production teams and the production level will fall in case of breaking down of the machine. In case of late reporting of manpower or absenteeism from a job, production will again hamper. A good management team is one which can identify these causes and address them efficiently.

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