Every day we use many products like car, shaving cream, tooth brush, tooth paste and use services like internet on mobile phone, car repairing, online or ticket booking through vendor etc. We pay for the product and service. Based on our experience, we decide if we want to repeat the order to the same company and/or recommend it to our friends and relatives.
What is crucial here is the experience customer gets after purchasing the product or the service. What makes it happen, is the entire orchestration starting from manufacturing or sourcing of the product to the delivery to the end consumer. For organization to succeed, this orchestration is the key element and is called operations. Best managed operations means higher growth and consumer goodwill.
In other words every business need to have efficient operations and need to work on how to continuously improve them for better ROI and better consumer experience. What one should learn to become a good operations manager in his/her distance MBA program? Here are some of the key subject which teach you some fundamentals of operations and key concepts.
World Class Operations
Manufacturing involves many processes. World Class Operational Management (WCOM) is an approach to improve manufacturing operations. It is process-driven approach. Continuous improvement in different key parameters like quality, cost, time are the main focus areas of WCOM. Here the word “world class” stands for best practices or significant changes seen in the large enterprises worldwide.
WCOM, as a concept, was originated from the consultant company Solving Efeso. The aim was to achieve excellence in operational management in the shortest time.
New Product Development
New Product Development (or NPD) refers to the process of bringing a new product to the market. This new product can be tangible like a car, a shampoo or intangible like service or experience etc. NPD crucial part of any business and requires fairly good understanding of customer needs and expectations, market scenario and competitive positioning.
Innovation Management
Cost, time and quality are the main variables that drive customer needs. Aiming at these three variables, innovative companies develop continuous practices and strategies to better satisfy customer requirements and to increase their own market share by a regular development of new products.
Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma is a combination of two methodologies Lean and Six Sigma. Lean was developed by Toyota with the objective of elimination of waste. Six Sigma was pioneer by Motorola with an objective of identifying and eliminating things that cause variation in the process.
Lean Six Sigma is a process improvement methodology which is team-oriented and designed to eliminate errors, remove waste, remove inefficiency and improve profitability of business. Lean Six Sigma is practiced and can work across many industries like Agriculture, aviation, banking etc. in almost every department starting from R & D to sales.
There are certifications available in the form of various colored belts which denotes different levels of mastery. They are Yellow, Green, Black and Master Belt.
Operations and Supply Chain Strategies
Business strategy is a long term master plan for the organization. This business strategy is further divided into functional strategies for different segments of business. Business strategy is further broken into operations & supply chain strategies and other functional strategies like Marketing, Finance, Human resources, Research & development etc.
Operations and supply chain strategies include translation of business strategy into operations and actions for the supply chain. It also includes development of core competencies to support the strategy.
Enterprise Resource Planning
To run a company some core processes like purchase, manufacturing, sales, accounting etc. are needed. Though generally they form separate departments, they are thickly connected to each other. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is the integrated management of core business processes facilitated by enterprise-wide software. SAP is an example of an ERP software.
ERP is a type of business management software which deals with data collected and managed from various business activities. Functions of any business organization are related and some inefficiency at one place might grow into an issue in the next step of the work flow. ERP helps to smooth out information flow between organizations processes and even outside entities so that the integrated operation and planning can be performed at its maximum efficiency.
Total Quality Management
Total quality management (TQM) is a structured approach for organization management developed by William Deming. Its objective is to improve quality of output through continuous improvement in internal processes. It focuses on eliminating errors and inefficiencies from manufacturing, supply chain, employee training and the customer experience.
Many industries have used TQM to improve their quality standards. TQM uses customer focus, employee involvement, process orientation, strategic and system approach, continuous improvement, fact-based decision making, effective communication as some of it key elements.
Procurement Management
Every business needs to avail some goods or services from outside for its functioning. Some businesses like manufacturing have continuous need for purchase of raw material on daily basis while some other businesses need it occasionally. Whatever the case may be, this purchase or procurement needs to be managed well. Otherwise the project or operations would come to a grinding halt.
Procure management is the process which ensures that supply of goods and services needed for various operations and projects are available when required. Excellent supplier relationships, good planning and fine timing of procurement not only ensure smooth operation but also lead to maximum efficiency and profits.
Service Operations Management
Operations management for a product is very different from that of a service. Services are intangible and many of them need “high contact” and hence cannot be transported like goods. Services are perishable and cannot be stored. This makes the capacity planning and quality assurance hard to quantify and measure.
In a post-industrial economy, service firms started expanding and now they contribute to most of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and the employment. With advances in information technology like cloud, newer service-based models are being invented and used.
Distance MBA in operations management covers above mentioned subjects in greater details along with common management subjects like strategy, finance and accounting, HR management etc. So if you have an interest in managing operations of a business and show your mettle, distance MBA in operations management is the course for you!
