Operations management is a complex area, one that deals with the issues of productivity, process improvement, inventory, capacity, forecasting and quality assurance from a single viewpoint, always working to keep ones best face forward while working to ensure that the manner in which the company is run is smooth, profitable, and, above all else, that all decisions and actions work to benefit the company itself. In order to best determine how each of these areas with which there may be potential issues works to interact between one another, a review of each of the different areas is provided, followed by an analysis of their interaction.
One of the many issues facing the operations management team is the capacity constraints for the company, which works to place limits on how much the company may store or may be maintained within the space budgeted by the company for inventory. The company must determine how many of the sub components may be stored as inventory, how many of the partially assembled components may be stored, and how many of the final products may be stored. In addition, they must determine whether such items should be stored or if they should be purchased on a minimalistic, as needed basis. Forecasting works to address this concern to a certain degree, as it works to ensure that the company is able to attempt to gauge the market, determining whether projected market forecasts indicate an additional allowance for new product, whether future orders may be larger based on current market trends, and other such information that serves to allow the business to gauge how best to deal with its capacity constraints.
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Quality management allows the company to effectively address the level of quality and the specifications for each completed product; the higher the quality, the greater potential demand for the product that may be forecast, which in turn determines the capacity that the company may wish to maintain. There are a variety of different quality management methods that may be employed for the purposes of maintaining high company standards, among those are the Six Sigma Quality Management Method and the Total Quality Management (TQM) Method. While Six Sigma was meant to replace TQM, it has been found that the setup of the company best determines which should be employed. The two methods, not dissimilar, work to create a strategic approach to quality management that ensures that the quality standards are maintained while working at the same time to make additional quality improvements.
Quality Assurance (QA) is the final piece of the puzzle, going behind the manufacturing process after the products are complete to ensure that the quality management process has been successful and that all products are tested and checked to make sure that the quality management method in place has ensured that the standards were in fact maintained. In this manner, all aspects are interrelated, and each of the different aspects of operations management are streamlined, ensuring that the company is able to effectively manage all areas of operations while working to react to any potential issue that may arise during the completion of the given project.
- American Production and Inventory Control Society. (1982). Capacity management. Washington, D.C: American Production & Inventory Control Society.
- Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2006). Quality management: Introduction to total quality management for production, processing, and services. Upper Saddle River N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
- Revere, L. and K. Black. “Integrating six sigma with total quality management: A case example for measuring medication errors.” Journal of healthcare management (2003): 6.
- Stevenson, W. J., & Hojati, M. (2007). Operations management. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
- Upton, D. (1994). The management of manufacturing flexibility. California management review, 72-89.
