What is operations management? Using examples, explain how the following operations management principles are applied in in larger organisations compares to operations management in medium and in smaller organizations.  

·      Assembly Planning layout

·      Jobs Planning

·      Project Management & Critical Path

·      Capacity Planning

·      Supply Chain Management

with examples

   explain the process and how it is used in a large and in a medium size company.

  The companies don't have to be the same and they don't have to be in the same industry.  

 

Answer:

What is operation management?

Operations Management is the creation, development and organization of the production function in order to achieve competitive advantages. The production function is defined by the creation, production, distribution, maintenance, etc., of the goods and services generated by a given company.

Modern productive organizations must necessarily develop their management based on principles of Administration and Engineering, so they must be fully known by those who assume the responsibility of performing professionally in this discipline. The proposed objectives must be achieved with the greatest efficiency, which is only possible through the continuous search for the improvement of productivity, that is, by making a judicious and efficient management of the resources used. Productive societies are supported by companies that are responsible for mobilizing elementary factors called resources, such as energy, raw materials, machinery, human factors, etc. those that then, when used in production through a transformation process that adds value, satisfy consumers. That said, the Administration of Production or Operations as it is also known, could be defined as the design, operation, improvement and control of the systems and / or processes that create goods.

An adequate Production Management must understand the needs of customers to design the products they require, take advantage of technology, improve productivity and respond flexibly and quickly to their requirements, develop processes that reduce errors, defects and waste, create places of high performance jobs through the development and motivation of employees and this leads us to affirm: A company with an inoperative or inefficient Production Management is doomed to failure.

Operations managers
are interested in the distribution
of the facilities is attractive, but
must ensure that facilities
contribute to the efficient movement of
people and materials with controls
necessary to ensure that
servings served are appropriate.

To create goods and services, all organizations perform three functions.
These functions are the necessary ingredients not only for production but also for the survival of the organization. These functions are:
1. Marketing, which generates the demand or, at least, takes the order for a product or service (nothing
it happens until there is a sale).
2. Production and operations, create the product.
3. Finance and accounting, keep track of how an organization operates, pay bills, and raise money.

Principles of administration.
The administrative principles that we have been taught in the university, are applicable not only to the administration of a company but to the administration of the life of each person even if they have not told us. In daily personal, work or professional development, we must apply many of the principles considered essential in administration.
Among some principles we have the following:
Planning
You can't do anything without planning it first. Even going to the movies on weekends requires planning, since variables such as time and money have to be taken into account. You even have to measure the opportunity cost, since going to the movies prevents other activities that may be more or less important from developing.
Organization.

All companies, whether large, small or medium-sized, require all the principles of operations management to function, so it is necessary to be organized. Depending on the type of organization and size, they always need to make decisions and these will have effects on different resources, which as a whole must be properly organized, otherwise it will be more difficult, such as planning and executing what was planned.
Direction.
As important as the previous ones. We must direct our actions, attitudes, etc. very well in order to achieve the chosen objective. Without direction it is not possible to advance. As the popular adage says: a ship without a rudder is a ship without direction, without direction and without destination.
Control.
It is absolutely necessary from time to time (if not always) to review our plans, actions, attitudes, to determine how well we are doing the job. If we do not question ourselves, we will hardly see the errors, and consequently we will continue to repeat them with their inexorable negative effect on the development of plans.
For this reason, the development of the entity must be approached with each of these principles, since perhaps life is precisely the most demanding company that we have started. A poorly focused and misled life is undoubtedly a failure.

About planning assembly processes
Assembly process planning is used to create assembly process plans and documentation of serviceability. A process plan can include the following tasks:
• Define the steps of an assembly manufacturing process or a disassembly process.
• Create a machining BOM for each step.
• Regroup independent components of the design assembly to accurately model the fabrication structure.
• Assemble unique tools and processes for a process step without impacting the overall design.
• Make cost and time estimates for the assembly manufacturing process.
• Create detailed plans for each step.
• Customize the display of each process step by defining multiple explode states and assigning different colors and line styles to components based on their state in the step.

A work plan is a tool that allows ordering and systematizing relevant information to carry out a job. This kind of guide proposes a way to interrelate the human, financial, material and technological resources available.

As a planning instrument, the work plan establishes a schedule, designates those responsible and sets goals and objectives.

Any person or company that decides to undertake and design a work plan in order to achieve the objectives that have been set is important that they know the process necessary to establish that one. Specifically, the steps that must be followed are the following: creation of a vision of the plan, approach of a strategy, establishment of the aforementioned schedule, determination of the areas that will participate, definition of tactics, alienation of the different processes of the project , assignment of the responsible persons, establishment of the necessary metrics, planning and consolidation of the deployment strategies, and establishment of the communication strategy.

The Critical Path Method (CPM) is a mathematical algorithm used to schedule a series of activities in a project. Fundamentally, to use CPM you need to develop a project model that includes the following:

a list of all the activities required to complete the project,
the dependencies between those activities, and
an approximation of the time (or duration) of each activity.
With these values, the CPM usually calculates the longest route to carry out the planned activities until the end of the project, and the earliest and latest points at which each activity can start and end without delaying the project. . This process determines which activities are "critical" (that is, they can lengthen the project path) and which activities are "full flexibility" (that is, they can be delayed without the project being delayed).

Capacity planning.

Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity that a person or organization needs to meet the changing demands of its products or services in a certain period of time.

In order to carry out adequate capacity planning, some requirements need to be determined in various sectors of the production chain. On the one hand, it is very important to know our current production capacity and on the other hand, to have quality standards on the product, service or quality of our final work. There is no use putting pressure on the production capacity of the organization or a person if in the end the result is going to be a lower quality product or service. In this step, you need to break down the work by tasks and quantify the performance of the employees on their assigned tasks.

Current capacity analysis
Both at an organizational and personal level, companies and individuals must take a deep look at their current production schedule to assess its potential for future capacity. It is necessary to analyze each task and the system as a whole. The following steps help to have a picture of the current state:

Use existing measurement units to measure performance on the same unit.
Compare these units over different time periods.
Review resource utilization for each key task and figure out the top most time consuming tasks and why.
Determine points of improvement to improve the workflow

Plan ahead.

After you have analyzed your current capacity, it is time to plan for the future. Based on a growth plan and processing requirements, it is necessary to apply an action plan by imagining different scenarios and forecasting external factors that could influence the development of a task. To perform this step, it is necessary to know the amount of incoming work that is expected in the coming quarters. Then, configure the system so that it is optimal both in quality and in processes. Finally, it is necessary to communicate this action plan so that all employees have an idea of ??the internal production flow.

Supply Chains.

1- Traditional supply chain
This type of supply chain can be valid for small companies that do not need a great control of their production, since each person involved in the manufacturing process makes their decisions independently. This lack of communication can cause a lack of control in the production chain, which if not solved quickly can cause the delivery deadlines of the orders that we have pending are not met. As we have discussed, in general, this type of supply chain only works for companies that do not have to deal with large quantities of raw materials or finished product, and that have a traditional manufacturing process in which no flow is needed. of continuous information for the correct functioning of the supply chain.

2 - Shared supply chain
In it, the people involved in the manufacturing process also make decisions individually, but they have a well-defined database where they can have access to all the information and the different decisions that have been taken during manufacturing.

3 - Supply management
In it, it is the supplier who will decide how many products to send to each of its customers. To know exactly how much product to send to its customers, the supplier uses an inventory that must be prepared by both parties, which includes the different average orders that have been made during a year from this moment.

4- Synchronized supply chain
In it, the entire phase of the production process is perfectly synchronized so that the manufacture of the product is followed from the entry of raw materials, until its arrival at the warehouse as a finished product and shipment. In this last type of supply chain, the development of new technologies is very important, since each point of the process must be perfectly detailed and a logistics network must be created where anyone can access the information that has been added by each part. responsible for the manufacture of a product.

Examples of Supply Chains:

Walmart Supermarkets
As an example of an efficient supply chain we will talk about the famous Walmart supermarkets in the United States, which was one of the first in the optimization of the supply chain. Walmart uses an innovative system called "Cross Docking." By means of this technique, the products are transferred directly to the truck that has to deliver them without having to go through the warehouse, and, therefore, saving all storage costs. Thanks to the savings in these costs, Walmart can offer products at a much lower price than its competitors. Another of the innovative technologies that Walmart uses is the use of radio frequency identification tags, by means of which and thanks to a numerical code any merchandise is tracked wherever it is, either on the way to a delivery, or in a supplier's truck. . This allows to have all the stock and merchandise controlled, solving any problem that may arise in them and avoiding having costs due to delays or losses.

Zara company.
To put another closer example of a company that everyone knows, we are going to talk about efficient logistics at Zara. This is a very interesting case because what fundamentally characterizes this company is the great coordination between the different parts of the supply chain. The main characteristic of Zara is that it restocks its products twice a week, and therefore it must have a very well structured and defined supply chain. To do this, at the end of each day the manager or person in charge of each store must send electronically the volume of sales that has occurred on that day for each product.

Step-by-step explanation

The management of the supply chain is progressively consolidated as an element whose relevance in the final success of any business activity increases gradually.

The meaning of supplying encompasses issues as diverse as the logistics and supply of our company, while we do it through a previously designed strategy that allows us to offer the maximum guarantees to the global operation of the organization.

The supply chain circumscribes all the elements involved, both directly and indirectly, to satisfy the request of the end customer on whom our business activity is focused.