OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Introduction : Definition and origins of Operations Management.

Operations management is a discipline that concern the production of goods and services. In fact its role is to optimize this production. It involves to manage all the operations of production as efficiently as possible, using the few ressources as possible to satisfy customer's need.
Operations management controls all the process that transform labor, raw materials or energy (any ressources) into finished product or service. This discipline is an organizational system that allow inputs become outputs. It is used as well for a hotel or a restaurant as well for a factory. Actually, it is used for any business that involves a process of converting, by different steps, different or group of people, any ressources into anything that can be sold and make profit. Moreover, in many cases, companies cumulate and provide goods and services.
In other words, OM was invented to make increase the performances and the productivity of a company, to make her be more profitable, more competitive. With the OM, all the steps of production is thought to define which quantity of ressource do we have to allocate to each task in order to spend the few money and time as pssible. Operations Management includes more generally the management of the employees, of the production, of the materials, the production cost control, and the pwork planning.
This discipline has to adapt itself to the sector of activity, to the type of good or service, to the size of the company but also to the economic context. That's why it always keep changing and progressing over the years.

The Operations Management takes its origins in all the cultural changes that happenned during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Before these events, the sale of goods and services was really more simple because their production were very smaller and ensured by artisans or really small companies.
The disignation « Operations