Operations Management

Operations management (OM) is a set of activities that create value in the form of goods and services by transferring inputs into outputs. The efficient production of these goods and services requires effective applications of concepts, tools and techniques of OM where students will appreciate their importance in improving organisations’ productivity. In particular, the focus will be on inventory planning and control, total quality management, scheduling and just in time operations where sales and operations planning justifies their key roles in demand and supply matching. The unit equips students with an understanding of OM at the centre of a supply chain, design of products and processes, strategic approach to cost, quality, delivery and flexibility dimensions, and integrated material requirement planning that make an organisation competitive over others. As the manufacturing is progressively shifting to strategically low cost country locations, the students appreciate the outsourcing strategy, make or buy decision as key to anywhere production, anywhere consumption paradigm. This concept introduces students with Industry 4.0 vision of cyber-physical systems where the autonomous manufacturing is here to lead the way in a global supply chain.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1. Deconstruct the theoretical aspects of product and services design and provision in a range of situations;
2. Critically evaluate various manufacturing and supply chain policies and theories, and interpret their applications and relevance to contemporary industries;
3. Adapt and justify the design of transformation processes which use materials, people and other resources to create products for customers in a given context;
4. Collaboratively investigate, analyse and report on practical manufacturing and service management situations in a specified industry, making effective recommendations; and