Operations Management and Just-In-Time Production
Operations management is defined as the performance of the managerial activities entailed in selection, design, operating, controlling, and updating production systems (Chase & Aquilano, 1973). "Selection involves the strategic decision of choosing the process by which some good or service is to be made or performed. For example, in a steel mill that produces railway wheels, the choice may be between forging or casting the wheels. "Design" encompasses the tactical decisions involved in the creation of methods to carry out a production operation. In the steel mill, for example, such decisions would regard the form and content of jobs to be performed and the type of service and control activities required to ensure smooth operation. "Operating" consists of the decisions of planning long-term output levels in light of the forecast demand and the short-term decisions of scheduling jobs and allocating workers. In the railway plant, this activity would range from forecasting to the growth in rail car sales for the next five years, to determining which order process first out of the array of orders on hand. "Controlling" entails the procedures involved in taking corrective measures as the product or service is created. In the steel company, such activities would range from monitoring and adjusting the metallurgical characteristics of different temperature steels to the expediting of orders to meet delivery deadlines. Finally, "updating: is the implementation of major revisions of the productive system in light of changes in demand, organizational goals, technology, and management. In the railway steel plant, this might encompass the likes of installing new capital equipment to produce a new alloy or the introduction of a computer-based production control system.
Specific operations that comprise "operations management" include such areas as plant layout, work measurement, deman...