Current Trends and Issues in Operations Management

Current Trends and Issues in Operations Management

Introduction

Operation management is a wide discipline which deals with the management of organization functions effectively. The concept of operation management introduces the relationship between the operational planning processes and operational basic elements within the organization. In modern operations management, there is a great emphasis on the quality of products (Monden, 2001). The concept of quality has also undergone some changes. Nowadays, the demand is not for the best quality but for the quality which is most suited for the purpose. Revenue is also an important concern for operations management.

In the recent years, organizations have started to put more emphasis on operations management. It is because of the increasing international competition and changing customer expectations. Due to these factors, organizations are endeavoring to improve their manufacturing operations (Waters, 1999).

Operations management is satisfied as long as revenue is more than the cost. The modern operations management has realized that it is the value of products rather than the cost which is important. Apart from quality, revenue, and value, flexibility is also an important concern for operations managers. As far as operations management is concerned, flexibility is needed in customer demand, operation systems, and capacity. The induction of computers and advanced software has revolutionized operations management by increasing the flexibility of operations (Saxena, 2009).

Discussion

Operations management current trends and issues are not weaken, because they have exceptional reasons to exists. They integrate lots of examples from the history and may change the future. Operations management has distinguished different trends from the industrial revolution to recent internet revolution, which indented and re-structure d the processes in order to make them more capable and more beneficial for businesses. This paper will talk about the current trends which arise as the need of the future businesses (Barnes, 2008).

Current Trends and Issues in Operations Management

From scientific management to division of labor, operations management has always seek to address the requirements of the firms by inventing lots of new trends. Correspondingly, the discussion demonstrates that how operations are plan these days and what are the current trends and issues in operations management, which are influencing operations management.

Computer-aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM):

In today's competitive environment, customer demands are very different from what they were just a few years ago. Customers, nowadays, demand lower cost, better quality, and greater speeds. Companies can achieve all these targets by managing their operations efficiently. A CAD/CAM operation intented that all scheming, designing and development of the product would be prepared with the support of computers formulates the operations system more efficiently. These computerized systems hugely help out to launch new product t and re-structuring the whole system. In order to achieve these targets, companies have started to implement lean systems. Lean systems use a total system approach to manage operations efficiently. Lean systems have pulled best practice concepts together (Saxena, 1999). These concepts include Just in Time (JIT), Total Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Resource ...