Logistiek en supply chain
management
Handelswetenschappen
Chapter 1: Introduction to operations Management
1.1 introduction
business organizations have three basic functional areas: finance, marketing and operations.
Operations is that part of a business organization that is responsible for producing goods and/or
services. Goods and services occur often jointly.
The ideal situation for a business organisation is to achieve an economical match of supply and
demand:
- Excess supply: wasteful and costly
- Having too little: lost opportunity and possible customer dissatisfaction
Operations management deals with the design and management of products, processes, services
and supply chains. It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms
need to deliver the goods and services their clients want.
Supply chain is a sequence of activities and organizations involved in producing and delivering a good
or service. For example:
A supply network is a pattern of process which adds value for customers through the manufacturing
and delivery of products. For example:
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,1.2 production of goods versus providing services
manufacturing and services are often different in terms of what is done but quite similar in terms of
how it is done.
There is a shift from the manufacturing sector to the service sector towards a knowledge economy.
Many services exist to support manufacturing. Manufacturing itself leads to innovation and a
return of innovations comes after research and development.
Decision horizon
OM ranges from strategic to tactical and operation levels.
- Strategic issues: determining the size and location of manufacturing plants, deciding
the structure of service or telecommunications networks, and designing technology
supply chains.
- Tactical issues: plant layout and structure, project management methods and
equipment selection and replacement
- Operational issues: production scheduling and control, inventory management, quality
contral and inspection, traffic and materials handling and equipment maintenance
policies
1.3 why learn about operations management?
The three major functions of business organization (operations, finance and marketing) do overlap.
Thus, those three functions must interface and keep each other informed on the other’s strengths
and weaknesses.
Operations also interact with other functional areas of the organization, including legal, management
information systems (MIS), accounting, personnel or human resources, and public relations
Chapter 2: competitiveness, strategy and
productivity
2.3 mission and strategies
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,Business strategy set the terms and goals for a company to follow (long term plan of action)
Operations strategy= the means by which the firm deploys its resources to achieve its competitive
goals.
Operations management is concerned with implementing the operations strategy
Examples of different operations strategies:
A framework for operations strategy
Strategic dimensions: cost, product differentiation, quality, delivery speed, delivery reliability,
flexibility.
Operations management is concerned with implementing the operations strategy to achieve
leadership along one or some of these dimensions.
Competitiveness:
- How effectively an organization meets the wants and needs of customers relative to
others that offer similar goods or services
- Organizations compete through some combination of their marketing and
operations functions
o What do customers want?
o How can these customer needs best be satisfied?
Strategy formulation
Effective strategy formulation requires taking into account:
- Core competencies
- Environmental scanning
o SWOT- analyse
Internal factors: strengths and
weaknesses External factors:
opportunities and threats
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, Successful strategy formulation also requires taking into account:
- Order qualifiers: characteristics that customers perceive as minimum standards
of acceptability for a product or service to be considered as a potential for
purchase
- Order winners: characteristics of an organization’s good or services that cause it to
be perceived as better than the competition
Sustainability as an operations strategy
Society is placing increasing emphasis on corporate sustainability practices in the form of
governmental regulations and interest groups
Sustainability is a shared responsibility, which means that both the companies, the government and
the consumers have responsibilities in this process. It is often a win-win situation because
sustainable operations cut costs (Lean). It is also a good marketing strategy and it ensures innovation
for the companies.
Performance measurement
Balanced scorecard approach and Key Performance
Indicators (KPI’s)
Every company should have a performance scoreboard, according to the balanced scorecard
approach. This is a holistic set of performance metrics (and corresponding performance standards)
that address the major concerns of customers, stockholders, employees and suppliers.
Implementing such a set of KPI’s is a prerequisite to performance improvement: people’s behavior is
based on the way they are measured and what gets measured gets improved. It is hard to win a game
without a scoreboard, it is hard to even know which game you are playing without a scoreboard.
The balanced scorecard is a top-down management system that organizations can use to clarify their
vision and strategy and transform them into action. The idea was to move away from a purely
financial perspective of the organization and integrate other perspectives such as customers, internal
business processes and learning and growth. Using this approach, managers develop objectives,
develop metrics and targets for each objective, develop initiatives to achieve objectives, and identify
links among the various perspectives (learning and growth, finance, customer, internal business, and
processes). Results are monitored and used to improve strategic performance results.
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