Operations management can be key to firm’s success
By BILL HOWATT

THE WORKPLACE must be nimble, agile and responsive to both current and new demands.

A manager must be ready to act at a moment’s notice to a change in demand or requirements.

A well-defined operations game plan is a core pillar for supporting a leader’s ability to lead in both stable and turbulent times.

Often, people associate the term operations management with an assembly line in a manufacturing plant.

However, the term applies to any kind of business. Operations management focuses on ensuring products and services are delivered with the quality the customer wants, while producing results outlined in the firm’s strategic business plan. Activities in operations management include organizing workflow, selecting processes, arranging layouts, locating facilities, designing jobs, measuring performance, controlling quality, scheduling work, managing inventory and planning.

Following are core concepts of an operations plan and key considerations for managing day-to-day operations.

Process Design and Flow

In the simplest interpretation, a process is a group of tasks with specific inputs and outputs. A process design breaks down the product into workable instructions for manufacture and delivery. Part of process planning is also deciding which components will be completed in-house or outsourced. Whether a firm chooses to do the work or to outsource it depends on its strategic vision, operations capacity and core competencies.

Workflow Analysis

Workflow analysis drives the continuous improvement of operations and ensures the operation is performing to expectations. This assists leaders to get a snapshot of the total operational flow so they can acknowledge what is working well and recommend any changes that are necessary. Workflow analysis can include the use of analytic tools such as benchmarking, operations audits and performance metrics.

Using process flowcharts, diagrams and maps to analyze the structure of the operations on a high level, an operation manager can compare current processes with reference points in order to determine the level of efficiency and operational capacity.

Operational Audit

An operational audit evaluates and defines whether the operation is doing what it is supposed to do to achieve corporate objectives. An operational audit can include exploring the current workflow, feedback systems, measures and metrics effectiveness, as well as ensuring all processes are documented.

It is not unusual to find that changes have been implemented to the system over time that have not been documented properly, or that good documentation exists but people are not following it. An operational audit will also analyze the effectiveness of the products and/or service in meeting customer needs and expectations.

Metrics

One major role of an operations manager is the ongoing monitoring of a process to ensure it is efficient, cost effective and profitable. Operations managers often adopt a variety of metrics to help them measure and analyze an individual process in relation to the entire operation. Many types of metrics can be employed.
A metric is of no value if the data collected do not influence business decision-making. If the data from a metric are not being used, then likely the metric is not needed and is only costing money, resources and energy. Metrics for collecting data might be onsite evaluation, project archives, surveys or daily reports.

Fundamental Attribution Errors

Fundamental attribution errors explain why some performance issues of an employee may not directly be their fault. Too often the operations manager neglects to examine potential external influences when evaluating an employee’s performance. In other words, leaders need to also assess the potential negative impact of social and environmental forces (e.g., poor lighting, ineffective management) in regard to their impact on employee performance.