It is often spoken about operational excellence and operational management today. We see more companies search for Operational Excellence Manager. My experience is that neither company really knows what they are searching for and far less does the people who assist in such recruitment understand what it means to have someone who can master the art Operations management.
Personally, I believe that this is a field that senior executives should master and that university student should study. In the hospital sector we today have what we called interdisciplinary specialized treatment of patients care within specialist health services, similarly interdisciplinary specialized cooperation’s there should be within the industry.
Operations management is a discipline that sometimes can be misunderstood because of its interdisciplinary nature. Several professions must cooperate and work across their professions to create the most efficient flow of production. Operations management primarily means to have an understanding of, and secondly be genuinely interested in understanding the relationships between the work processes in planning, organizing and managing the production or delivery of services. It does not matter what kind of industry we talk about, it’s about understanding the relationship between the work processes and how they interact or not interact within an organization.
Supply Chain and quality is an important parameter here, it is about having an understanding of what is input and what is output and how to manage this effectively. The input can represent everything from materials, equipment and technology to human resources, such as employees. Furthermore, there are two other areas that are affected by field of Operations management, that is important to have an understanding of and be able to master. There is supply chain management and logistics. Operations management is based on both these disciplines. For example, it is about being able to familiarize themselves with and understand global trends in supply chain management that affect customer requirements. Without this understanding it will be difficult to comprehend and meet customer needs or contribute to Operations Excellence.
The understanding of logistics will make you able to analyze the use of the various inputs and evaluate cost-effectiveness of the value chain. By understanding and have knowledge in logistics has become increasingly important lately in an era where resources can often be in short supply and customer expectations have skyrocketed.
There are strong parallels between mastering these two skills required to achieve Operations Excellence (operational efficiency) in logistics and supply chain management.
If and organization want to increase its efficiency one should hire someone who masters and understands the organizational business processes in general. Without this understanding, it is difficult to contribute to efficiency and increase productivity within the organization. One must be able to understand a variety of work processes within a company to get them to flow seamlessly, and how this is directly related to supply chain management.