Well-established corporates such as Toyota and Ford are known for using the following 10 operations areas in their business activities:
1.Goods and services: This area of operations management relates to finding ways to implement consistency in costs, quality, and resources across all business divisions.
2.Quality Management: This is an important aspect of operations management as it directly relates to the demands and needs of customers and their satisfaction. Market research is very useful to determine customer needs as well as batch quality assurance testing on products and services in production.
3.Process and Capacity Design: Technology and resources along with production goals are vital objectives that are fulfilled using design strategies. A value stream map can be used to identify what processes are necessary and how they can be conducted efficiently.
4.Location: Location strategies are typically developed keeping supply chain under consideration, and understanding how the location will receive supplies. Movement of goods and services internally and to customers and marketing and public relations choices factor into determining a location strategy.
5.Layout Design and Strategy: This strategy is required to develop the best possible placement of desks, workstations, and delivery and utilization of materials.
6.Human Resources and Job Design: Organizations will only be as strong as their employees. This calls for continuous improvement programs and regular reviews, training workshops for employees, and institute employee satisfaction programs for employee growth and well-being.
7.Supply Chain Management: The best strategies to streamline, reduce costs and, develop trusted partners are formulated in this area of management.
8.Inventory: Different markets bring about different challenges with respect to inventory but what’s common between these markets is that they all need to strategize so as to plan inventory control. Weather, supply shortages, and labor all influence how an organization maintains its inventory.
9.Scheduling: This aspect considers both production and people. Planning how much product is required to be produced for customers in a specific period of time is all part of scheduling. The number of people and machines to perform tasks efficiently is determined in this aspect of operations management. This varies from among industries and business departments.
10. Maintenance: Maintenance of people, machines, and processes is vital for maintaining high quality standards and stable resources.
These areas of operations management can be applied to businesses of any scale and are covered only in the best operations management courses in India. Students are trained to use these as a guide to analyze operations in an organization.