The transformation of Operations Management in the Past Fifty Years

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Recommended: Historical development of Operation Management

According to MIT Sloan School of Management (2013),
Operations Management deals with the design and management of products, processes, services and supply chains. It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms need to deliver the goods and services their clients want.

Ways in which Operations Management have evolved are the incorporation of internet technologies, more efficient machines, and the scope itself. This is not an exhausted list by any means, but these three aspects are highly important as it relates to the changes in Operations Management over the past fifty years.

Initially with manufacturing, it was all about being cost effective (Heyl, 2011, pg.18). This is not only pertinent to the last fifty years, but really with the start of the country, and entrepreneurship here. However, from the 1960s up through the late 80s, and even into the 90s, more and more efficient machines were being developed that were able to make companies more “lean.” With each new machine that was introduced, it was able to be more productive than the last, consequently replacing more workers. A strong production system that is automated requires less people to operate. This was great for firms as it allowed them to keep cost down, and still be as, if not more productive than before.

Within the last thirty years, the scope of Operations Management has shifted quite a bit. This shift began to take on more of a quality focused approach (Heyl, 2011, pg.18). Manufacturers had gone through the years of development, and had insight on what they could do to operate cost effectively. With some new technologies/systems developing like the Electronic Data interchange (a standard format for exchanging business data...

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Rmmojado. (2012, 01 23). How big is the e-commerce industry?. Retrieved from http://visual.ly/how-big-e-commerce-industry
Techtarget. (2014). Cad (computer-aided design). Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/CAD-computer-aided-design
Techtarget. (2014), Edi (electronic data interchange). Retrieved from http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/definition/EDI Techtarget. (2014), Just-in-time manufacturing (jit manufacturing). Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/just-in-time-manufacturing-JIT-manufacturing
Techtarget. (2014), Total quality management (tqm). Retrieved from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/Total-Quality-Management

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