Introduction: Operations Management - The engines of the organization

Operations Management has a wide scope of responsibility.  It is the area of business that is concerned with the production of goods and services, and involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient and effective.  To name a few, it is the management of resources, the production and distribution of goods and services to customers, and the analysis of queue systems.  It can be the engine to the back office of a bank, retail department store, a manufacturing plant, and even the process of making the food in a restaurant.  For example, look at all of the operations management responsibilities of the store COSTCO:

Every day, you use a multitude of physical objects and a variety of services.  Most of the physical objects have been manufactured, and people within organizations have provided most of the services.  Every organization has an operations function, whether or not it is called “operations,” such as the management of customer service functions like customer care and technical support.

 

In this lesson will give an overview of the basic functions within operations management.  We will also go over Information Systems or IS, and Information Technology or IT.  These two functions sometimes are combined into one group so we will discuss them as one unified group.  There will be a discussion on disaster planning as well.

 

We will also discuss customer service and the duties of technical support, along with an overview of Human Resources or HR.