NAME: ANN EKWE

MATRIC NUMBER:
NSU/MBA/FIN/0020/18/19

COURSE CODE: MBA 821

COURSE: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT: Identify and discuss in details the current trend in

Operations Management (OM).
INTRODUCTION
Operations management (OM) may be considered to be a multidisciplinary field that
focuses on effectively managing an organization’s processes for the production and
distribution of specific products and services. It applies both qualitative and
quantitative concepts and techniques to increase process efficiency and
effectiveness, reduce costs, assure high-quality output, and improve organizational
flexibility to changing demands.
Operations management began to truly define itself during the industrial revolution
of the late 1800s and particularly the early 1900s. Taylor developed efforts in
standardization and specialization, with a focus on workers, their tasks, and how to
effectively manage them. This leads to the formalization of such Operations
Management sub-disciplines such as product design, production scheduling,
inventory control, capacity planning, and quality management.
DEFINITION:
Operation management is a process that involves planning, organizing, managing,
controlling and supervising the production and manufacturing processes. It can be
seen as the process in which resources or inputs are converted in to more useful
products. It is the process of managing activities that produces goods and services
in order to create value to the customer.
ROLES OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
These are some of the roles of operations management in an organisation:
 Operations management is obligatory for organizations to manage the daily
activities seamlessly. With its help, an organization is able to make good use
of its resources like labour, raw materials, money and other resources
efficiently.
 Operation Management is important to improve the overall productivity. The
ratio of input to output is termed as productivity. It gives a measure of the
efficiency of the manager as well as the employees. Since the discipline
focuses on using the available resources in the best possible way to achieve
end goals, so it improves the overall productivity.
 Operations management is the heart of an organization as it controls the
entire operation, If the products are made to cater for the needs of the
customers then, they will be sold at a rapid rate.
 Operations management plays a crucial role in an organization as it handles
issues like design, operations, and maintenance of the system used for the
production of goods.

With recent development, the operations management has changed

drastically, and major changes in operations management are summarized
below:
 Investment in Digital Internal Communications
As the millennial generation continues to occupy the largest portion of today’s
workforce, and unemployment numbers are at historical lows, business
leaders should continue to prioritize strategies for employee engagement and
retention. Satisfied employees work harder and invest more in your company,
Promoting transparent, accessible internal communication is one method that
will prove effective for specifically recruiting and retaining millennial
employees, who look for feedback forums, clear expectations of their
performance and workplace, and need to know their work matters and serves
a meaningful purpose.
Facilitating peer-to-peer communication can provide the following benefits for
your workplace:
i) Enhance workplace morale.
ii) Improve processes and outcomes, regardless of your industry, so deadlines
are met and project completion can happen sooner.
iii) Encourage and increase employee collaboration. When great minds come
together, and colleagues are able to voice action ideas more effectively, this
yields optimal results on any project.
Addressing these concerns makes a company or an Organisation more
competitive and caters to frontline employees who may feel overlooked.
Internal communication and mobile collaboration platforms don’t just increase
efficiency—they also contribute to positive employee experience, which boosts
retention and mitigates costly turnover.
Working together, whether through mobile collaboration or in person,
promotes better team productivity and develops more meaningful work by
cultivating valuable relationships between team members.

 Automatization of Operational Processes - Automating

processes throughout a business or an organisation can save money and
 increase efficiency when it comes to all areas of operations management.
Online reservation services, automated chatbots, inline translation functions,
and mobile hotel check-in features are only a handful of examples of business
dependency on technology.
By dedicating machines to specific business tasks, companies/organisations
are freeing up employee time for focusing on their products and their
customers. Rather than assigning an employee to monitor the company
website and answer the same questions multiple times, programming a
chatbot to respond to Frequently Asked Questions saves time and resources.
In 2019, personalization of experiences and content will gain momentum,
driving competition as businesses commit to delivering more customized
goods and services, and to do this, digital transformation, especially
delegation of operational processes, will be essential.

 Emphasis on Improving Company Culture and Workforce

Experience - Beyond sales figures-based analytics, consistently gathering
employee feedback through surveys contributes to better business overall
through improved goal alignment and transparency.

Operations management may appear to span only materials and products, but
people are an essential component of any business structure. In such a tight labour
market, where job seekers have many options in choosing a workplace, the
importance of investing in improving company culture, and incorporating employee
feedback on it, cannot be overstated. Keeping the line of communication between
staff and management open is an excellent way to track team vitals.

 Global Focus - The geographical limitation of the market has expanded

from focusing on local markets to focus on global markets. This
has occurred due to the rapid development in communication, globalization
and increased mobility of resources among countries. As a
result countries focus on producing goods and services at a global scale
rather than limiting themselves to geographical boundaries.

 Just In Time Production - In the past, production was carried out in a

mass production method where there were batches of goods produced and
sold at mass scale generating economies of scale. In the modern operations
management era batch production focus has shifted towards Just In Time
production where goods and services are produced upon the receipt of order
with customizations. It has reduced the inventory cost drastically.

 Employee Empowerment - Before now employees were treated as

just another input to the production process where they were treated like
machines. There was specialization and workers concerns were ignored. With
 the development of Human Resource Management now firms focus on
employee empowerment where they treat employees as resources that bring
competitive edge to the firm. In this concept the worker’s concerns are heard
and organizations make arrangements for their welfare and mental/physical
fitness.

 Green Production
In past the production was focused on obtaining resources at lowest possible cost
and manufacturing at the lowest cost ignoring the damage made to
the environment.  Due to the initiatives by environment pressure groups companies
are moving towards green production and green marketing where they carry
out business activities without damaging the environment by not destroying natural
resources, taking care of forests and wild life and so on.

 Supply Chain Partnerships - In the previous trend of Operations

management, the purchasing activities were carried out based on the lowest
bid where organizations chose the supplier who provides the lowest bid for a
particular order. This was more short term focused and quality and reliability
was ignored. In modern days the low bid purchasing has shifted to supply
chain partnerships where companies consider suppliers as a part of their
value chain and build long lasting relationships with suppliers rather than
focusing on short terms gains with low prices.

 Product Development
In the past decades, the product life cycle was lengthy and when a product was
introduced, it stayed in the market for a long time. But with the rapid expansion of
technology the product life cycle has become short where every product is replaced
by a new product very fast. Due to this reason companies are not able to have
lengthy product development processes and they are forced to introduce rapid
development of new product while encouraging innovation.

 Worker Involvement - The recent trend is to assign responsibilities for

decision making and problem solving to the lower levels in the organisation.
This is known as employee involvement. Examples of employees
empowerment are quality circle and use of work teams or quality
improvement teams.

 Lean Production - Production system have become lean production

systems which have minimal amount of resources to produce a high volume
of high quality goods with some variety. These systems use flexible
manufacturing systems and multi- skilled workforce to have advantages of
both mass production and job production.
  Flexibility - The ability to adapt quickly to changes in volumes of demand
in the product mix demanded, and in product design or delivery schedules
has become a major competitive strategy and a competitive advantage to the
firms. This is sometimes called agile manufacturing.

 Total Quality Management (TQM) - This approach has been

adopted by many firms to achieve customer satisfaction by a never ending
quest for improving the quality of goods and services.

 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - Enterprise resource

planning is an enterprise wide information system designed to coordinate all
the resources, information, and activities needed to complete business
processes such as order fulfilment or billing.

 Computer Aided Design (CAD) - Computer aided design is the use

of computer technology to aid in the design and particularly the drafting
(Technical drawing and Engineering drawing) of a part or product, including
entire buildings. It is both a visual (or drawing) and symbol based method of
communication whose conventions are particular to a specific technical field.

 Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) - Business process Re-

engineering involves drastic measures or break -through improvements to
improve the performance of a firm or an organization. It involves the concept
of clean-state approach or starting from scratch in redesigning in business
processes.

 Data-backed Performance Measurement and Employee

Analytics - When it comes to making sound decisions in every area of a
business or an organization, data gleaned from detailed analytics give
companies a baseline for implementing changes in areas from development
and production to customer service.

With metrics solutions that deliver comprehensive measurements, business owners

or the management of organizations can make more informed decisions regarding
business practices moving forward.

Mobile collaboration apps allow organizations to see which employees are actively
engaged in collaboration, and which may require encouragement or assistance, by
measuring usage and participation in real-time.
CONCLUSION:

Over time, the field of operations management has grown in strength, size, and
importance. It incorporates both engineering and behavioural concepts, and utilizes
quantitative analysis techniques, for systematic management decision-making.
Research in Operations Management continues to evolve in terms of topics, themes,
motivations, and methodologies.

The field of Operation Management needs to continually monitor its research base
against evolving industrial realities. The core of Operation Management, however,
will continue to remain with the design and management of the transformation
processes that create value for organizations and society. Operations will still be a
human organization which converts ideas for products into reality from raw and
recycled materials.

References:

1. GP Moynihan (2018) - Background and current trends in operation management.

2. Taylor, A. and Taylor, M. (2009) - Operations Management research.

3. Anatasia Cortes (2016) - Operations Management: Definition, Principles,

Activities, Trends.

4. Zamolo, Alexandra (2019) - Operations Management.