Operations Management 1e

An International Perspective
David Barnes, Royal Holloway School of Management
ISBN-13: 9781844805341
eISBN-13: 9781408007761
ISBN: 1844805344

The role of operations management in the 21st century brings with it many complex challenges, not least of which is the international context in which all businesses now operate. The forces of globalization, underpinned by Internet-based technologies, the lowering of trade barriers and a reduction in transport costs have prompted firms of all sizes to source their supplies, outsource their activities, set up production facilities and serve markets well away from their own home countries.

In this concise text, David Barnes focuses on the key issues of international operations management from a strategic and conceptual perspective, using relevant international theory to expand upon the solid foundation of a traditional operations management syllabus. Using well known examples and case studies from real companies around the world, he offers a well-balanced look at both services and manufacturing operations. His accessible and engaging writing style makes this books ideally suited to those encountering Operations Management for the first time at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

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Chapter Abstracts

• Ch. 1. Operations Management
  Chapter One covers the key concepts of operations management including: the transformation model; the three different types of operations - materials processing operations, information processing operations and customer processing operations; service operations and its distinguishing factors, and supply networks - outsourcing.
• Ch. 2. Operations, Strategy and Operations Strategy
  Chapter Two covers the nature of strategy and the relationship between operations and strategy; the roles that operations can play within organizational strategy; the strategic significance of operations management to organizations and the key strategic decision areas of operations management that constitute an operations strategy.
• Ch. 3. The Internationalization Processes: Drivers, Challenges and Benefits
  Chapter Three covers the forces driving the internationalization of operations including technology, political, economical and socio-cultural factors; the internationalization process; the main challenges of operating internationally and the benefits to an organization in operating internationally.
• Ch. 4. International Operations Strategies
  Chapter Four covers the implications of international business strategy for an organization's operations including inputs, the transformation process and outputs; the principal objectives that organizations can have in internationalizing their operations including the market access strategy and the resource seeking strategy; the different ways in which an organization can enter and serve foreign markets; the relationship between business strategy in an organization operating internationally and the benefits available from an appropriate international operations strategy.
• Ch. 5. Facilities
  Chapter Five covers the factors important to an organization making facilities location decisions; the issues that affect the scale and scope of operations facilities at particular locations; the strategic role and importance of decisions about facilities in international operations management and the factors that organizations need to consider when determining the configuration of their operations.
• Ch. 6. Capacity
  Chapter Six covers the nature of capacity and the factors that affect it; the approaches to forecasting customer demand; the factors that affect the timing and sizing of capacity expanding decisions; and the generic strategies for managing capacity including the level capacity strategy, chase demand strategy and the demand management strategy.
• Ch. 7. Process Technology
  Chapter Seven covers the criteria on which process technology choice decisions are made; the role that ICT plays in modern operations management; the strategies available for technology adoption; the issues involved in transferring technologies between different geographic locations; the characteristics of generic process types in the context of the volume-variety model; the basic layout types and their relationship with the generic process types and the challenges of determining an appropriate configuration for process equipment.
• Ch. 8. The Supply Network
  Chapter Eight covers the key issues in the configuration and co-ordination of supply networks; the basis and importance of outsourcing decisions; the implications of global sourcing and the difference approaches to managing supplier relationships.
• Ch. 9. Planning and Control
  Chapter Nine covers the principles and practices of planning and control in operations; the different approaches to inventory planning and control; the basis of ERP and the principles of JIT and lean operations.
• Ch. 10. Quality
  Chapter Ten covers the different ways in which quality can be defined and measured; the evolution of quality ideas over the last 50 years; the approaches to managing quality in operations and the differences in managing quality in different national and cultural contexts.
• Ch. 11. Work Organisation
  Chapter Eleven covers the issues involved in designing appropriate organizational structures for the operations function; the influences that organizational and national cultures have on work organizations; and the benefits and challenges of organizing employees into work teams.
• Ch. 12. Human Resource Management
  Chapter Twelve covers how organizations recruit and select people who work in their operations; the different organizational strategies for training and development of workers in operations; the main approaches to job design; the different approaches to reward and remuneration and the issues associated with attempts to relate pay to performance and the national contextual factors that affect the management of human resources in operations.
• Ch. 13. New Product Development
  Chapter Thirteen covers the importance of new product development and the ways in which new product development activities are conducted; the role of new technology in product development; how new techniques can be used to improve the new product development process and the challenges of new product development in international organizations.
• Ch. 14. Performance Measurement
  Chapter Fourteen covers the importance and purpose of performance measurement in operations; the basis of performance measurement and performance measurement systems; how performance standards and benchmarking can be used to assess and improve performance; the different approaches to performance improvement; and the challenges and risks associated with performance improvement initiatives.
• Ch. 15. Current Trends and Emerging Issues
  Chapter Fifteen covers the implications of current trends in operations management; and the likely impact of emerging issues on the future of operations management.