Operational Management Today's Business Environment Thesis

Then, another, and probably the most obvious, application of operations management is that of achieving cost reductions. Richard Stylves offers the most conclusive example of Henry Ford, who sought to integrate assembly lines using the most cost effective commodities, including labor force. The aim of operations management is then that of reducing expenditure and increasing operational efficiency. Its applications are present at all organizational levels, from resource allocation to product distribution. Amazon.com has successfully integrated these principles by establishing its warehouses in adequately chosen locations which allow it to efficiently and automatically distribute its products to worldwide consumers.

Carter McNamara agrees with most of the previous findings, but his article is more of a generalist one, in which the author simply states that operations management has applications in "purchasing, control and coordinating function of management, product and service management, quality management, inventory management, logistics and transportation management, facilities management, configuration management [and finally], distribution channels."

4. Conclusions

Today's managers are faced with the difficult challenge of internationalized competition and customers revealing modifying and incremental demands. In order to cope with these modifications, organizational leaders implement numerous theoretical concepts, such as operational management. The notion is rather complicated to define simply because it is extremely complex and has countless applications at all organizational levels. In a most crude form, operations management could be defined as the totality of process and strategies implemented by organizational leaders to ensure increased operational efficiency, high quality of the products and services, efficient delivery systems, adequate resource allocation and maximized profits.

Operational management has a multitude of applications within economic agents and some of the most notable such claims refer to improved internal communications (between employees themselves, employees and management and between internal departments, such as marketing and IT), superior training of the employees, continuity and sustainability of organizational processes, better control of internal processes, response and adaptability to changes affecting the micro and macroenvironments or significant cost reductions.

References:

Ebojo, M., March 2009, Skillful Communication, Supplement to Pharmaceutical Executive

Koch, C., 2009, Who's to Blame in the Relationship Between IT and Marketing? Better Management, http://www.bettermanagement.com/library/library.aspx?l=15013 last accessed on April 23, 2009

McNamara, C., 2009, Operations Management, Management Help, http://managementhelp.org/ops_mgnt/ops_mgnt.htm last accessed on April 23, 2009

Stylves, R., 2008, FEMA, Katrina and Operations Research: Better Operations Management Would Have Helped FEMA in Preparedness and Response Work before Hurricane Katrina -- and Still Could Now, The Public Manager, Vol. 37

2009, Operational Management, Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/sectors/infosec/infosecadvice/continuitymanagement/operationalmanagement/page33400.html last accessed on April 23, 2009