Operations management

Topics

Choose a topic to revise

Sample objectives

What this unit covers

• Production of goods and services: Understand the concept of production, including effective resource management for creating goods and services, the distinction between production and productivity, the advantages of enhancing efficiency, and methods to achieve this such as automation, technology, and improved workforce skills. Recognize the reasons businesses maintain inventories and learn about lean production principles, including just-in-time inventory management and Kaizen, along with the benefits of implementing lean production.
• Production of goods and services: Identify the primary production methods, including the characteristics, advantages, and drawbacks of job, batch, and flow production. Be able to recommend and justify the most suitable production method for a specific scenario.
• Costs, scale of production and break-even analysis: Recognize and categorize different types of costs, such as fixed, variable, average, and total. Utilize cost information to make straightforward decisions regarding production, like whether to cease or continue operations.
• Costs, scale of production and break-even analysis: Understand the principles of economies and diseconomies of scale, including examples like purchasing, marketing, financial, managerial, and technical economies, as well as issues such as poor communication, employee disengagement, and ineffective coordination that can lead to diseconomies.
• Achieving quality production: Understand the significance of quality in business and the methods to achieve quality production. This includes defining quality and its importance for businesses, explaining quality control and its implementation, as well as discussing quality assurance and its application.
• Location decisions: Identify the key elements that affect a business's choice of location and the reasons for relocating. This includes factors important for both manufacturing and service sectors, considerations for selecting a country for operations, the impact of legal regulations on location choices, and the ability to suggest and support a suitable location.