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Unit title: Operations Management

Unit code: MGT 508
Credit points: 8cp
Unit description: OM is the core discipline area that underpins the day-to day running of
an enterprise. It is the way organizations produce goods and services.
Most of the things we see or activities we do involve a product or
service that has been organized by an operational function. Operations
are the heart of an organizations existence, the backbone of business.
OM covers an ever-increasing span of activities and techniques that
impact on the input to the process, the transformation that changes the
format of the input to result in output, either as goods or services.
This unit has been designed to provide students with the tools needed to
make effective and efficient key decisions, in order to meet global
competition.
Unit objectives: This unit is designed to enable students to gather:
Knowledge
1. Study the operational requirements of an organization, taking into
account the existing situations, constraints and implications arising
from an operations audit.
2. Identify, analyse and evaluate the operational factors and
characteristics affecting the optimal technical and service
performance, product/service quality, capacity, productivity and
profitability of service/manufacturing settings

Skills
1. To learn and practise the management of business activities that are
concerned with the design, planning, and control of resources for the
production of goods and the provision of services.

Values/attitudes
1. To gain a full understanding of the nature of OM.
2. To appreciate the significance of OM for all types of organizations.
3. To provide a framework for identifying the role of OM in students
own organization.
4. To recognize the difference between the management of operations
in service industries and those in manufacturing industry


Unit outcomes: This unit is structured around selected core issues to provide students
with a logical approach to the learning journey of OM.


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Readings: Recommended texts
1. Meredith, J.R. & Shafer, S.M. (2002), Operations Management for
MBAs, 2
nd
.edn. John Wiley
2. Heizer, J. & Render, B. (2004) Operations Management. 7
th
.edn.
Pearson Prentice Hall.
3. David L. Goetsch, Stanley B. Davis, Wanda Edwards, (2000)
Quality Management Introduction to Total Quality Management
for Production, Processing, and Services, 3
rd
.edn.Ptrentice Hall
4. Slack et al, (2000) Operations Management, Pitman.

Supplementary readings
1. Davies, M.M., Aquilano, N.J. & Chase, R.B. (2003), Fundamentals
of Operations Management, 4
th
.edn. McGraw Hill.
2. Fitzsimmons, J.A. & Fitzsimmons, M.J. (2000), Service
Management, Operations, Strategy, and Information Technology,
3
rd
.edn. McGraw Hill.
3. Gaither, N. (1996), Production & Operations Management, 7
th
.edn.
Duxbury Press, Belmont.
4. Gaither, N. and Frazier, G. (1999), Production and Operations
Management, 8
th
.edn. South Western College Publishing, Ohio.
5. Martinich Joseph S. (1997), Production and Operations Management
An Applied Modern Approach, John Wiley.

Journals
1. Asia Pacific Journal of Management
2. Business Week
3. Far Eastern Economic Review
4. Fortune
5. Forbes
6. Harvard Business Review
7. Journal of Marketing
8. Newsweek
9. Sloan Management Review
10. Time
11. The Economist

Unit contents: TOPICS
1. What is Operations Management [OM]?
Introduction to OM.
Operations Strategy.


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2. Design in Operations Management
Design of Product/Service and the Operations Network.
Layout and Process Flow.
Process Technology.
Job Design and Work Organization.

3. Planning and Control
The Nature of Planning and Control.
Capacity Planning and Control.
Inventory and Supply Chain Planning/Control.
Material Requirement Planning [MRP] and Just-in- time [JIT]
Operations.
Project Planning and Control.


4. Review of Operations Management
Operations Improvement, Failure Prevention, and Recovery.
Total Quality Management [TQM].



5. Future of Operations Management
Operations Challenges