Operations management
Topics covered in this UNIT - Operations Mangement
4.1 Production of goods and services
4.1.1 The meaning of production:
- Managing resources effectively to produce goods and services
- Difference between production and productivity
- Benefits of increasing efficiency and how to increase it, e.g. increasing productivity by automation and technology, improved labour skills
- Why businesses hold inventories (stocks)
- Concept of lean production; how to achieve it, e.g. just-in-time inventory control and Kaizen; benefits of lean production
4.1.2 The main methods of production:
- Features, benefits and limitations of job, batch and flow production
- Recommend and justify an appropriate production method for a given situation
4.1.3 How technology has changed production methods, e.g. using computers in manufacturing and design
4.2 Costs, scale of production and break-even analysis
4.2.1 Identify and classify costs:
- Classifying costs – fixed, variable, average, total; use examples to illustrate these
- Use cost data to help make simple cost-based decisions, e.g. to stop production or continue
4.2.2 Economies and diseconomies of scale:
- The concepts of economies and diseconomies of scale; examples of both
4.2.3 Explain, interpret and use a simple break-even chart:
- The concept of break even
- Construct, complete or amend a simple break-even chart
- Interpret a given chart and use it to analyse a situation
- Use a chart to help make simple decisions, e.g. impact of higher price
- Understand the limitations of break-even charts
4.3 Achieving quality production
4.3.1 Why quality is important and how quality production might be achieved:
- What quality means; why it is important for all businesses
- Concept of quality control and how businesses implement quality control
- The concept of quality assurance
4.4 Location decisions
4.4.1 The main factors influencing the location and relocation decisions of a business:
- Factors relevant to the location decision of manufacturing businesses and service businesses
- Factors that a business could consider when deciding which country to locate operations in
- The role of legal controls on location decisions
- Recommend and justify an appropriate location for a business in given circumstances