Operation Management Eassy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Operation Management Eassy - Essay Example (Chase, 2001, 5) Buffa discussed that 'OM had progressed from an entirely explanatory foundation through the Management Science/Operations Research (MS/OR) phase, and is currently in the course of finding itself as a practical field of organisation. Amoako-Gyampah, K., Meredith, J., 2004, 251), Many authors, since the beginning, advocated that OM should be an area of knowledge with a 'sense of purpose’, in terms of providing insight into problems of the real word, the ones engineers and managers face in their work. As Chase (2001) observed, when analysing the four journals that historically, at that time, had published most extensively with OM subjects - namely, AIIE Transactions, Decision Sciences, Management Sciences and the International Journal of Production Research - that the orientation (people or equipment) and emphases (from micro to macro) were heavily focused on equipment and micro analyses as, for instance, inventory control and scheduling. This picture was changed , as we will see in this literature review. 2.2 Areas of Operation Management As presented by Buffa, the first call for papers sketched out a list of topics that defined the Operation Management subjects. Since then, relevant studies as Miller and Graham, Voss, Amoako-Gyampah and Meredith, Pannirselvam et al. and Gupta, Verma and Victorino, among others, using different approaches, were carried out looking to identify the content, new topics and trends in the field, and also to establish new research agendas. Nowadays, the scope of the journals focused on OM is considerably broader. (Miller, J., and Graham, M., 2004, 548) Operation Management borrows theories from other areas and that 'this field has changed from its narrow occupation with strategic, disjointed topics toward more premeditated, incorporated and large-scale subjects. For instance, as an alternative of studies in the tactical, stand alone areas of 'Inventory' and 'Process Design’; researchers are now looking at the complete 'Supply Chain' and organisation-wide 'Flexibility', correspondingly (Anderson, 2008, 58). Decision Areas within Operation Management includes Design of products and services Quality Management Development and capacity plan Location strategy Layout strategy Human resources & employment design Supply chain management Inventory, material requirements, progression and JIT (Just-in-time) Intermediate and short-range scheduling Maintenance Description of Layout Strategy of Operation Management The arrangement of equipments, departments and work centers with special concentration on movement of work (consumers or materials) all over the system is called Layout of organization. Selecting an appropriate layout of an organisation requires significant investments of funds and hard work, which involves serious commitment. Appropriate layout of an organisation leaves considerable effect on cost and competence of various operations within the organisation. There are several types of layout, which are as follows. Fixed Position layout In Fixed Position layout manufactured goods and whole project remains motionless. However, employees, materials, and machinery move from their position according