HERIOT-WATT MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME

School of Management and Languages

Operations Management 1 / 2 Example Answers

Question A3:

Describe how Operations Management has evolved since the start of the 20th
century. Where appropriate, illustrate your answer with examples

Example Grade A Answer:

Operations Management is defined as creating, operating and controlling the transformation system that
takes input from a variety of resources and produces goods and services needed by the consumers.
Inputs include materials, facilities, building and equipments. Management inputs involves knowledge of
human resource, maintenance, purchasing, supply chain management and logistic.
Transformation system includes technology, facilities and layout employed to add value to produced goods
and services. Managing transformation system requires technological awareness, as well as knowledge of
health and safety issues, quality control, planning and control techniques etc.
Outputs can be seen as a tangible product such as a tin of baked beans or intangible product as a
successful mortgage application. Customer service, physical appearance of the surroundings, distribution,
transportation and logistics are the issues that need to be considered.

1900s
Production Era

1930s
Sales Era

1960s
Marketing Era

Scientific
Management
Classical School

Human Relations
School
Management Science
School

Systems
School

1980s
Comparative Management
School
Contingency School

Production Era: Ushered in during the Industrial Revolution in the last of the 19th Century, it focused on
mass production of goods. Large groups of people need to be managed and organised. Provision of
education is needed for those people that manage the factories and production. Consumers, rightly or
wrongly, see mass production goods as superior to hand made products. Taylor developed his scientific
management idea during this time, looking at maximising productivity. People will do part of the work
instead of whole. In this way, operations can be measured and planned. Taylor researched and studied the
workers. During this time scientific management thoughts emerged and the classical school also emerged,
providing the 14 principles for them to use.
Sales Era: Somewhere in the mid 1920s to 1950s the organisations operations are so efficient producing
the goods, the consumer does not have enough demand. Business starts to focus on selling the products
that had already been made. Personal selling and advertisements are the key activities that organisations
use to sell their products. The human relations school emerges, considering the social and human needs
of the workers and Management science school emerge, managing and controlling using mathematical
and statistical models.
Marketing Era: In 1960s, the thinking changed again. While the organisations prime concern had been
their own operations and maximising productivity, what has not been considered is the outside world. How
is the organisation going to interact with the external environment? The business needs to identify what the
consumer wants and produce it. It becomes challenging for the organisations operations in terms of
delivery date, work in progress etc. During this time, the systems schools emerge, looking at broader
perspectives and taking into consideration the external environments. As operations and the environment
getting more complex, comparative management school and contingency school also emerged.
th
In the last two decades of the 20 century, enormous changes where made to operations and consumer
markets. Internet literally opened up the business and consumer markets. People can now shop at local

suppliers and they can enter global marketplace to buy their products to meet their needs, in terms of price,
quality and delivery flexibility. People can do shopping online, taking charge of their buying and delivery to
suit individual lifestyle.
The competitive market has put immense pressure on the operations function in any business. Twenty four
hour fast food restaurant, direct banking and one hour processing etc. have become a culture where
consumer can access activities twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Therefore operations
management has to provide for this.
Examiner Comments: Grade A
A very good answer that traces the development of management theory against changing
focus of industrial organisations. It could be further developed with discussion of the impact
on environment on management thinking.

Example Grade D Answer:

Operations Management is concerned with the day-to-day operations of an organisation and therefore, is
in the core of any business. Much has changed since the start of the 20Th century in the way we think as
consumers and customers.
The demand and requirement of customers has been in constant change over the years and represents
one of the main drivers for change in the way operations are managed. Another important factor for the
evolvement of operations management is the changes in the workforce beliefs towards the place of work.
At the start of the 20th century demand for products and services was very low and also the expectations of
customers and workers could be easily satisfied. Most of the products were produced by few workers
covering a number of tasks in a jobbing process type.
After the 1st World War an increase in demand for products required an increase in productivity. Taylor and
his concepts resulted in a school of thought called Taylorism. This argued that to increase productivity a
job should be divided in small tasks and each worker should perform one of the tasks, specialise on that
task and that repetition would improve performance and speed of production. Although speed has been
improved and increases in production could be achieved, dissatisfaction and boredom was raised among
the workers because of the repetitiveness of the job. New ways of thinking emerged and Taylor has been
widely criticised. More attention to the work conditions for the employers have been made and the
Scientific Management School starts to argue that the workplace should be adjusted. It established that
lighting, temperature and other facilities have influence on the workers performance. Still much attention
was being paid on the job itself rather than the employee. Human relations school has changed the focus
of business operations from the job to the human aspect of an organisation in an attempt to emphasise the
importance of the worker. Employee satisfaction would affect the productivity. Ergonomics and employee
welfare has emerged at this stage.
At the same time all schools of management contributed to the evolvement of operations management.
They all had a fragmented approach, each giving emphasis to one aspect of an organisation and not taking
into consideration the whole of the operation.
Only later with the systems school the approach to operations management did we see the organisation as
a whole system made up of subsystems but all interrelated. Every sub-system has influence on the other
and each one depends on the other to function. Where improvements are made on one sub-system this
represents improvement on the others and on the organisation as a whole. Every aspect of an organisation
is related and affected by the external environment. At this point a holistic approach is taken towards how
an organisation should be run.
Examiner Comments: Grade D
This answer gives a general overview of the three approaches. It could be further improved
by introducing a timeline and discussing the more recent evolution of Operations
management

Example Grade F Answer:

Operations management can be defined as the creating, operating and controlling of a transformation
system that takes input from various resources and turns them into output needed by customers (J. Taylor,
2002)
Operations Management is a wide area and plays an important role in manufacturing and service
industries. In both of these industries input can be considered as the raw material, equipment, labour or
workforce, management and finance that can be used in the beginning to provide goods and services to
consumers.
Transformation system is a stage through which input can be changed into the output, such as technology,
design and layout of equipment, staff training.
Similarly output are the end products or services, provided to the consumers, such as products like bread,
sandwiches, cars and services or a successful mortgage application, leading to customers satisfaction and
healthy life.
The evaluation of the operations management can be mentioned briefly in diagram below, from the
th
beginning of the 20 Century.
Scientific School

|
Human Relations School
|
Production Era
| Sales Era
|
19001910-1920-1930- | 1940
1950 {WWI}
| {WWII}
(i)

|
|
|
|
|
|

Marketing Era

1960-1970-1980-1990-2000

Production Era (1900-1930)

From the end of the 19th century, there was a rise in industrial revolution, and a rise in the movement
known as Taylorism. Production of goods used to be done in enormous and massive quantities that
lead to high number of working people or labour, with limited training provided because of the limited
resources.
Production of goods used to take place through assembly lines, and the main emphasis was on
increased units.
By that time, rightly or wrongly consumers presumed products from industries and factories better for
them rather than household products.
The taste and preference of customers was very limited, producers engaged themselves in just
maximum production.
As stated by Henry Ford My customers can have any colour they want, as long as that is black.
From that statement it can be known as more and more automobiles in black colour as consumers
were not aware of choice.

(ii)

Sales Era (1920-1960)

During that period, production obviously reached to the maximum point that it had increased demand.
Producers started getting worried about high number of stock left, then they tried to get rid of that.
Efforts were made by manufacturers or producers to sell maximum goods to the consumer in a short
period of time. At this time the school of Human Relations came into being.

(iii)

Marketing Era (1960- Present)

After the World War II industries became affected. After several years, again demand had increased,
however, this time there was huge competition among industries. Their main aim was to produce
more and at the same time sell more in order to maximise profitability. Various techniques were
adopted by businesses in order to increase their sales such as advertising to the customers about
products.
Examiner Comments: Grade F

Although this answer identifies the main eras, further discussion is required to demonstrate
that the student understands the impact of each of the schools of thought. At stage 3
students need to show depth in their answers