Operations Management

At its heart a capacity strategy suggests how the amount and timing of capacity changes should relate to long term changes in demand. Three options illustrate the range of possibilities available when demand is expected to grow steadily. Alternative Types of capacity Cushion One obvious way that companies can meet demand that is temporarily greater [...]

A company’s operations infrastructure is composed of its policies and systems governing a number of activities, from capital budgeting and equipment selection to organizational structure.  Each of these systems often has repercussions and implications for other infrastructural and structural elements. Capital budgeting and performance measurement systems in particular seem to affect everything else. In addition, [...]

A useful framework for thinking about the diversity of operations design decisions is provided. The collective impact of these decisions   establishes limits on an operations organization’s strategic capabilities. Operations strategy decision categories: Structural decisions Capacity –amount , type, timing Sourcing and vertical integration –direction extent, balance Facilities  — size, location, specialization Information and process technology [...]

In the information intensive industries, almost all these assumptions come into question. To begin, the production and distribution of information is very different from that of physical products. Operations managers typically have focused their attention on the cost of producing a specified volume of a product or service during a given time period, where the [...]

Process Reengineering – At the heart of the lean manufacturing paradigm is the concept of continuous improvement. Even though the operating system that it results in may be vastly different from that embodying the older mass production paradigm the process of getting from the latter to the former generally requires a myriad of incremental improvements [...]