Operations Management

Posted: September 3rd, 2013

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Operations Management

Process analysis

A business operation comprises of several processes that are structured in order to maximize the value of inputs by converting them to outputs. The inputs may include raw materials, labor force, energy and investments while the output could be a physical good or service that can be applied as an input during another process. Process analysis is responsible for identifying the necessary steps that should be taken for the completion of a particular operation. The functionality of operations is considered more extensive than the procedures involved in the production of goods and services since it ensures the development of products, maintenance of facilities and distribution of products and services.

Process analysis involves analyzing the processes involved in production with the aim of comprehending the activities and their connectivity. The first step in achieving this involves identifying process limitations that exist within the entrance and exit points of inputs and output. The next step involves creating a diagram, which displays relationships between the processes and activities in production. Further constraints are analyzed in these procedures in order to measure their impact. As a result, the analysis obtained from this process is applied in decision-making and hence improving the production process.

Operations strategy

Operations strategy involves the formation of a permanent strategy for utilizing the main resources of a company intended for a high level of compatibility among those resources and the organization’s permanent commercial strategy. In this case, an organization sets extensive policies and strategies for utilizing its resources to in order to support the competitive strategy of the business in the most effective way. Operational strategy concentrates on extensive questions concerning how the main Company’s resources are constructed in order to accomplish the desired business goals.

Examples of issues that are addressed include the means of creating facilities, types of processes used in producing goods and services, means of assuring quality and the type of supply chains. An operational strategy includes formation of a business strategy, which involves selecting various business objectives that include maximizing particular aspects of the organization that have a high potential probability of making the business more profitable and minimization of areas that are of lesser potential.

However, the key issue is in the lack of enough information that could help in giving in improvising on the business strategies. In this case, procedures in strategic distribution must be expanded and there has to be a reliable communication network in the planning sector to enable increased exhaustion of information concerning the efficient means of implementing the strategy.

Example: UniCo’s Plant

In the case of UniCo’s plant, the company’s operations were always lagging behind and hence causing the business to suffer profit loss. The manager, Alex was ordered by the Company’s executive that he had a period of three months to transform the business operations in a way that would enable the Company’s progress in earning profit and setting its competitive priorities in order to be more successful. Alex applies one of the procedures in process analysis that involves the use of bottlenecks, where he identifies the restrictions involved in the production process. As a result, Alex was able to minimize the impact of those constraints through the identification process and offered a significant device for evaluating and directing the flow of resources. Once the bottlenecks were identified, Alex together with his team of subordinates started executing certain changes in the production that would help in speeding up the capacity.

In one of the faults for using obsolete technology in current production, Alex decided to use old machinery, which their Company got at no cost since it had been formerly used in their plant to be combined with other two machinery tools. This was done in order to maximize the capacity in manufacturing goods and hence achieve generating order qualifiers and order winners. Processes in heat treat were analyzed, leading to the identification of another constraint that led to huge delays when the product was taken through the heat treat process. In addition, it was discovered that other goods were being heat-treated several times instead of doing it simply once. After discovering these constraints, the Company was able to make the necessary corrections that prevented the Company from succeeding by employing certain operational strategies involving product development and strategic development that would boost improvement in the manufacture and production of goods and services.