Management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Management (disambiguation).

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people
together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently
and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or
directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or
effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment
and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and
natural resources.

Because organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as

human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a
system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting
to manage others.

The verb manage comes from the Italian maneggiare (to handle — especially tools),
which in turn derives from the Latin manus (hand). The French word mesnagement (later
ménagement) influenced the development in meaning of the English word management
in the 17th and 18th centuries.[1]

Some definitions of management are:

• Organization and coordination of the activities of an enterprise in accordance with

certain policies and in achievement of clearly defined objectives. Management is
often included as a factor of production along with machines, materials, and
money. According to the management guru Peter Drucker (1909–2005), the basic
task of a management is twofold: marketing and innovation.

• Directors and managers have the power and responsibility to make decisions to
manage an enterprise. As a discipline, management comprises the interlocking
functions of formulating corporate policy and organizing, planning, controlling,
and directing the firm's resources to achieve the policy's objectives. The size of
management can range from one person in a small firm to hundreds or thousands
of managers in multinational companies. In large firms the board of directors
formulates the policy which is implemented by the chief executive officer.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

production management
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Planning, implementation, and control of industrial production processes to ensure

smooth and efficient operation. Production management techniques are used in both
manufacturing and service industries. Production management responsibilities include the
traditional "five M's": men and women, machines, methods, materials, and money.
Managers are expected to maintain an efficient production process with a workforce that
can readily adapt to new equipment and schedules. They may use industrial engineering
methods, such as time-and-motion studies, to design efficient work methods. They are
responsible for managing both physical (raw) materials and information materials
(paperwork or electronic documentation). Of their duties involving money, inventory
control is the most important. This involves tracking all component parts, work in
process, finished goods, packaging materials, and general supplies. The production cycle
requires that sales, financial, engineering, and planning departments exchange
information — such as sales forecasts, inventory levels, and budgets — until detailed
production orders are dispatched by a production-control division. Managers must also
monitor operations to ensure that planned output levels, cost levels, and quality objectives
are met. See also productivity

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/production-management#ixzz1J8yTJLS2

What is Operations Management?

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.

The purvey of OM ranges from strategic to tactical and operational levels.

Representative strategic issues include determining the size and location of
manufacturing plants, deciding the structure of service or telecommunications
networks, and designing technology supply chains.

Tactical issues include plant layout and structure, project management methods,
and equipment selection and replacement. Operational issues include production
scheduling and control, inventory management, quality control and inspection,
traffic and materials handling, and equipment maintenance policies.

introduction to production and operations management

Definition

Production and Operations Management ("POM") is about the transformation of production and
operational inputs into "outputs" that, when distributed, meet the needs of customers.

The process in the above diagram is often referred to as the "Conversion Process". There are
several different methods of handling the conversion or production process - Job, Batch, Flow
and Group

POM incorporates many tasks that are interdependent, but which can be grouped under five
main headings:

PRODUCT

Marketers in a business must ensure that a business sells products that meet customer needs
and wants. The role of Production and Operations is to ensure that the business actually makes
the required products in accordance with the plan. The role of PRODUCT in POM therefore
concerns areas such as:

- Performance
- Aesthetics
- Quality
- Reliability
- Quantity
- Production costs
- Delivery dates

PLANT

To make PRODUCT, PLANT of some kind is needed. This will comprise the bulk of the fixed
assets of the business. In determining which PLANT to use, management must consider areas
such as:

- Future demand (volume, timing)

- Design and layout of factory, equipment, offices
- Productivity and reliability of equipment
- Need for (and costs of) maintenance
- Heath and safety (particularly the operation of equipment)
- Environmental issues (e.g. creation of waste products)

PROCESSES

There are many different ways of producing a product. Management must choose the best
process, or series of processes. They will consider:

- Available capacity
- Available skills
- Type of production
- Layout of plant and equipment
- Safety
- Production costs
- Maintenance requirements

PROGRAMMES

The production PROGRAMME concerns the dates and times of the products that are to be
produced and supplied to customers. The decisions made about programme will be influenced
by factors such as:

- Purchasing patterns (e.g. lead time)

- Cash flow
- Need for / availability of storage
- Transportation

PEOPLE

Production depends on PEOPLE, whose skills, experience and motivation vary. Key people-
related decisions will

Operations research
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This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. The talk page may contain suggestions.
 (February 2010)

Operations research (also referred to as decision science, or management science) is

an interdisciplinary mathematical science that focuses on the effective use of technology
by organizations. In contrast, many other science & engineering disciplines focus on
technology giving secondary considerations to its use.

Employing techniques from other mathematical sciences — such as mathematical

modeling, statistical analysis, and mathematical optimization — operations research
arrives at optimal or near-optimal solutions to complex decision-making problems.
Because of its emphasis on human-technology interaction and because of its focus on
practical applications, operations research has overlap with other disciplines, notably
industrial engineering and management science, and draws on psychology and
organization science. Operations Research is often concerned with determining the
maximum (of profit, performance, or yield) or minimum (of loss, risk, or cost) of some
real-world objective. Originating in military efforts before World War II, its techniques
have grown to concern problems in a variety of industries.[1]

Products are the tangible entities which are offered in the market by
Organization to fulfill the needs, wants and demands of the customers.
Products are tangible products in the market which customers purchase
from market to satisfy needs or wants. Customers always view the product
in the form of bundle means the set of benefits customers get after
purchasing the product. The product bundle include complementary
elements like warranty, information and etc.

Services are intangible entities which are offered in the marketing by Organization with
product or separately. The objective of service remain similar to product fulfilling wants
or demands of customers

What is industrial engineering?

The field of industrial engineering has had many definitions given to it. Most of the
definitions include all of the same elements stated in slightly different ways. For example
the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) defines industrial
engineering as

the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by
study, experience and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize
economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind. [1]

The American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) defines industrial engineering as

concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people,
materials, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the
mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of
engineering analysis and design to specify, predict and evaluate the results to be
obtained from such systems. [1]

Both definitions describe industrial engineering as a broad field concerned with

integrating all the different aspects in a service or production environment. Part of being
MARKETING VERSUS SERVICE MARKETING WHAT YOU NEED an
industrial engineer is learning how to balance changes.

Industrial engineering
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of

complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement,
implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge,
information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis and synthesis, as well as the
mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of
engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such
systems or processes. Its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-
oriented disciplines such as Operations Management, but the engineering side tends to
emphasize extensive mathematical proficiency and usage of quantitative methods.

Depending on the sub-speciality(ies) involved, industrial engineering may also be known

as operations management, management science, operations research, systems
engineering, or manufacturing engineering, usually depending on the viewpoint or
motives of the user. Recruiters or educational establishments use the names to
differentiate themselves from others. In health care, industrial engineers are more
commonly known as health management engineers or health systems engineers.

While the term originally applied to manufacturing, the use of "industrial" in "industrial
engineering" can be somewhat misleading., since it has grown to encompass any
methodical or quantitative approach to optimizing how a process, system, or organization
operates. Some engineering universities and educational agencies around the world have
changed the term “industrial” to the broader term “production”, leading to the typical
extensions noted above. In fact, the primary U.S. professional organization for Industrial
Engineers, the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) has been considering changing its
name to something broader (such as the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers),
although the latest vote among membership deemed this unnecessary for the time being.

The various topics of concern to industrial engineers include management science,

financial engineering, engineering management, supply chain management, process
engineering, operations research, systems engineering, ergonomics, cost and value
engineering, quality engineering, facilities planning, and the engineering design process.
Traditionally, a major aspect of industrial engineering was planning the layouts of
factories and designing assembly lines and other manufacturing paradigms. And now, in
so-called lean manufacturing systems, industrial engineers work to eliminate wastes of
time, money, materials, energy, and other resources.

Examples of where industrial engineering might be used include designing an assembly

workstation, strategizing for various operational logistics, consulting as an efficiency
expert, developing a new financial algorithm or loan system for a bank, streamlining
operation and emergency room location or usage in a hospital, planning complex
distribution schemes for materials or products (referred to as Supply Chain Management),
and shortening lines (or queues) at a bank, hospital, or a theme park.

Industrial engineers typically use computer simulation (especially discrete event

simulation), along with extensive mathematical tools and modeling and com

introduction to production and operations management

Definition

Production and Operations Management ("POM") is about the transformation of production and
operational inputs into "outputs" that, when distributed, meet the needs of customers.

TO KNOW

Every business owner knows that having a good marketing plan is

absolutely vital to the success of their business venture. If you don't
have a good marketing plan, then you don't know how to get where
you want to go. You will just be shooting in the dark and you won't be
able to see how you can achieve your goals within the market that you
are working within.

However, you need to have different approaches to marketing based

on whether or not you are marketing products or if you are marketing
services. If you are marketing both services and products, then you
need to develop two different marketing plans that share some
similarities-such as the type of business and the company image that
you want to portray-but are also different. Different tactics work better
for services versus products. You need to develop marketing plans for
each and every one of them.

Product marketing versus service marketing: what you need to know

So what are the differences between product marketing and service

marketing? Many businesses know how to market products, but it is
trickier to market services. Here are some things that you need to
know about the differences between products and services.

Differences between service marketing and product marketing

1. When you are marketing a service, you are really marketing

relationship and value. This relationship and value needs to be
marketed differently than if you are marketing actual products.

2. Another major difference between marketing services and

marketing products is that when a buyer purchases a service, the
buyer is purchasing something that is intangible, instead of a tangible
product, like a computer or a sprinkler system or a web page.

3. Consumers' concept of a service is often times based on just the

reputation of only one single person. Instead of building a reputation
based on the quality of a number of different products, a service is
built on how well a particular person delivers on a service, such as how
well a stock advisor does with your stock portfolio.

4. It is pretty easy to compare the quality of different products. It's

easy for you to see if one computer works more quickly than another
computer, or if one TV has a better picture than another picture, or if
your child can break a toy more easily than another toy. However, it is
much more difficult to compare the quality of similar services that are
provided.

5. Products are returnable. However, services are not returnable.

How to market services

Generally speaking, marketing a product requires what are known as

the "4 P's": Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Marketing a service
adds three more "P's" to the traditional "4 P's": People, Physical
evidence, and Process. Service marketing also includes marketing
what is known as the servicescape, which is the aesthetics of your
business place: the outside of your business building, the inside of
your business building, and the way that the employees look.

Products are the tangible entities which are offered in the market by Organization to
fulfill the needs, wants and demands of the customers. Products are tangible products in
the market which customers purchase from market to satisfy needs or wants. Customers
always view the product in the form of bundle means the set of benefits customers get
after purchasing the product. The product bundle include complementary elements like
warranty, information and etc.

Services are intangible entities which are offered in the marketing by Organization with
product or separately. The objective of service remain similar to product fulfilling wants
or demands of customers.

Kotler definition of Service is

“ Any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible
and does not result in the ownership of any thing”

According to American survey products failure rate is higher than service failure rate
that’s the reason we can see lots of services are being offered to customer in the market in
20th century. Telecommunication, education and banking are the most growing industries
in services sector.

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 What is industrial engineering?

The field of industrial engineering has had many definitions given to it.
Most of the definitions include all of the same elements stated in slightly
different ways. For example the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
(ABET) defines industrial engineering as

the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by
study, experience and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize
economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind. [1]

The American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) defines industrial engineering as

concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people,
materials, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the
mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of
engineering analysis and design to specify, predict and evaluate the results to be
obtained from such systems. [1]

Both definitions describe industrial engineering as a broad field concerned with

integrating all the different aspects in a service or production environment. Part of being
an industrial engineer is learning how to balance changes.

History

The origins of industrial engineering can be traced back to many different sources.
Fredrick Winslow Taylor is most often considered as the father of industrial engineering
even though all his ideas where not original. Some of the preceding influences may have
been Adam Smith's treatise The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, Thomas
Malthus’s Essay on Population, published in 1798, David Ricardo’s Principles of
Political Economy and Taxation, published in 1817, and John Stuart Mill’s Principles of
Political Economy, published in 1848. [1] All of these works provided Classical Liberal
explanations for the successes and limitations of the Industrial Revolution. Adam Smith
was an economist as were most of his contemporaries at the time. "Economic Science" is
the phrase to describe this field in England prior to American industrialization. The
amount of influence this literature had on Taylor is unknown.

Another major contributor to the field and precursor to Taylor was Charles W. Babbage.
Babbage was mathematics professor at Cambridge University. One of his major
contributions to the field was his book On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers
in 1832. In this book he discusses many different topics dealing with manufacturing, a
few of which will be extremely familiar to an IE. Babbage discusses the idea of the
learning curve, the division of task and how learning is affected, and the effect of
learning on the generation of waste. He also was very interested in different methods of
wage administration and even suggested profit sharing as a viable approach. Charles
Babbage was the first person to suggest building a mechanical computer, "analytical
calculating machine" as he called it, for the purpose of solving complex mathematical
problems. An idea that is far beyond the technology of his time but later proves to be a
valuable concept to the modern IE.

In the United States during the later part of the nineteenth century more developments
where being made that would lead to the formalization of industrial engineering. Henry
R. Towne stressed the economic aspect of an engineer’s job. How was the engineer going
to improve the bottom line for the company? Towne belonged to the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as did many other early American pioneers in this new
field. It was to the ASME that Towne expressed the need to develop a field focused on
manufacturing systems. The IE handbook says the, "ASME was the breeding ground for
industrial engineering."[2] Towne along with Fredrick A. Halsey worked on developing
and presenting wage incentive plans to the ASME. It was out of these meetings that the
Halsey premium plan of wage payment developed. The purpose of his plan was to
increase the productivity of workers without negatively affecting the cost of production.
The plan also suggested that some of the gains be shared with the employees as an
incentive to keep it going. This is one early example of one profit sharing plan.

Henry L. Gantt also belonged to the ASME and was interested in selection of workers
and their training. He, like Towne and Halsey, would present papers to the ASME on
topics such as cost, selection of workers, training, good incentive plans, and scheduling
of work. He is the originator of the Gantt chart, currently the most popular chart used in
scheduling of work. Today however, the Gantt chart is coupled with statistics to make
more accurate predictions. Other types of charts that have developed out of the early
scheduling efforts are the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and
Critical Path Mapping (CPM).

No history of industrial engineering would be complete without mentioning

Fredrick Winslow Taylor. Taylor is probably the best known of the pioneers
in industrial engineering. He used the ASME as present his ideas on the
organization of work by management. He coined the term "scientific
management" to describe the methods he developed through empirical
studies. His work, like others, covered topics such as the organization of
work by management, worker selection, training, and additional compensation for those
individuals that could meet the standard as developed by the company through his
methods. The Taylor method of Scientific Management had far reaching effects on the
industrial revolution, in America, and abroad.

The Gilbreth family is accredited with the development of time and motion studies. Frank
Bunker Gilbreth and his wife Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth worked on understanding fatigue,
skill development, motion studies, as well as time studies. Lillian Gilbreth had a Ph.D. in
psychology which helped in understanding the many people issues. The Gilbreth family
was interested in the "one best way" to do work. One of the most significant things the
Gilbreth family did was to classify the basic human motions into seventeen types, some
effective and some non-effective. They labeled the table of classification therbligs
(Gilbreth spelled backwards). Effective therbligs are useful in accomplishing work and
non-effective therbligs are not. Gilbreth concluded that the time to complete an effective
therblig can be shortened but will be very hard to eliminate. On the other hand non-
effective therbligs should be completely eliminated if possible. Gilbreth claims that any
form of work can be broken down into these simple types of work.

When the United States entered World War II the government enlisted scientist to study
there war plans, production methods, and logistics. These scientists developed a number
of techniques for modeling and predicting optimal solutions. Later when this information
was declassified the field of Operation Research was born. Much of the work was still
highly theoretical and a good understanding of how to apply it in the real world did not
exist. Engineers tended to ignore the developments in this field because of this. This
intern caused the gap between the Operation Research (OR) group and the engineering
profession to widen. Only a few companies where quick to develop Operation Research
departments and capitalize on the benefits afforded by this new type of analytical
modeling.

In 1948

Industrial engineering
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering dealing with the optimization of

complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement,
implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge,
information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis and synthesis, as well as the
mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of
engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such
systems or processes. Its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-
oriented disciplines such as Operations Management, but the engineering side tends to
emphasize extensive mathematical proficiency and usage of quantitative methods.

Depending on the sub-speciality(ies) involved, industrial engineering may also be known

as operations management, management science, operations research, systems
engineering, or manufacturing engineering, usually depending on the viewpoint or
motives of the user. Recruiters or educational establishments use the names to
differentiate themselves from others. In health care, industrial engineers are more
commonly known as health management engineers or health systems engineers.

While the term originally applied to manufacturing, the use of "industrial" in "industrial
engineering" can be somewhat misleading., since it has grown to encompass any
methodical or quantitative approach to optimizing how a process, system, or organization
operates. Some engineering universities and educational agencies around the world have
changed the term “industrial” to the broader term “production”, leading to the typical
extensions noted above. In fact, the primary U.S. professional organization for Industrial
Engineers, the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) has been considering changing its
name to something broader (such as the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers),
although the latest vote among membership deemed this unnecessary for the time being.

The various topics of concern to industrial engineers include management science,

financial engineering, engineering management, supply chain management, process
engineering, operations research, systems engineering, ergonomics, cost and value
engineering, quality engineering, facilities planning, and the engineering design process.
Traditionally, a major aspect of industrial engineering was planning the layouts of
factories and designing assembly lines and other manufacturing paradigms. And now, in
so-called lean manufacturing systems, industrial engineers work to eliminate wastes of
time, money, materials, energy, and other resources.

Examples of where industrial engineering might be used include designing an assembly

workstation, strategizing for various operational logistics, consulting as an efficiency
expert, developing a new financial algorithm or loan system for a bank, streamlining
operation and emergency room location or usage in a hospital, planning complex
distribution schemes for materials or products (referred to as Supply Chain Management),
and shortening lines (or queues) at a bank, hospital, or a theme park.

Industrial engineers typically use computer simulation (especially discrete event

simulation), along with extensive mathematical tools and modeling and com

introduction to production and operations management

Definition

Production and Operations Management ("POM") is about the transformation of production and
operational inputs into "outputs" that, when distributed, meet the needs of customers.
The process in the above diagram is often referred to as the "Conversion Process". There are
several different methods of handling the conversion or production process - Job, Batch, Flow
and Group

POM incorporates many tasks that are interdependent, but which can be grouped under five
main headings:

PRODUCT

Marketers in a business must ensure that a business sells products that meet customer needs
and wants. The role of Production and Operations is to ensure that the business actually makes
the required products in accordance with the plan. The role of PRODUCT in POM therefore
concerns areas such as:

- Performance
- Aesthetics
- Quality
- Reliability
- Quantity
- Production costs
- Delivery dates

PLANT

To make PRODUCT, PLANT of some kind is needed. This will comprise the bulk of the fixed
assets of the business. In determining which PLANT to use, management must consider areas
such as:

- Future demand (volume, timing)

- Design and layout of factory, equipment, offices
- Productivity and reliability of equipment
- Need for (and costs of) maintenance
- Heath and safety (particularly the operation of equipment)
- Environmental issues (e.g. creation of waste products)
PROCESSES

There are many different ways of producing a product. Management must choose the best
process, or series of processes. They will consider:

- Available capacity
- Available skills
- Type of production
- Layout of plant and equipment
- Safety
- Production costs
- Maintenance requirements

PROGRAMMES

The production PROGRAMME concerns the dates and times of the products that are to be
produced and supplied to customers. The decisions made about programme will be influenced
by factors such as:

- Purchasing patterns (e.g. lead time)

- Cash flow
- Need for / availability of storage
- Transportation

PEOPLE

Production depends on PEOPLE, whose skills, experience and motivation vary. Key people-
related decisions will consider the following areas:

- Wages and salaries

- Safety and training
- Work conditions
- Leadership and motivation
- Unionisation
- Communication

Management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Management (disambiguation).

Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people
together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently
and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or
directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or
effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment
and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and
natural resources.

Because organizations can be viewed as systems, management can also be defined as

human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a
system. This view opens the opportunity to 'manage' oneself, a pre-requisite to attempting
to manage others.

Nature of the Work About this section

Operations research analysts formulate and apply mathematical modeling methods
to develop and interpret information that assists management with policy formulation
and other managerial functions. Using analytical techniques, operations research
analysts help managers to make better decisions and solve problems. The
procedures of operations research were first formalized by the military. They have
been used in wartime to effectively deploy radar, search for enemy submarines, and
get supplies to where they are most needed. In peacetime and in private enterprises,
operations research is used in planning business ventures and analyzing options by
using statistical analysis, data mining, simulation, computer modeling, linear
programming, and other mathematical techniques.

In addition to the military, operations research analysts today are employed in almost
every industry, as companies and organizations must effectively manage money,
materials, equipment, people, and time. Operations research analysts reduce the
complexity of these elements by applying analytical methods from mathematics,
science, and engineering, to help companies make better decisions and improve
efficiency. Using sophisticated software tools, operations research analysts are
largely responsible for solving complex problems, such as setting up schedules for
sports leagues or determining how to organize products in supermarkets. Presenting
the pros and cons of each possible scenario, analysts present solutions to managers,
who use the information to make decisions.

Analysts are often involved in top-level strategizing, planning, and forecasting. They
help to allocate resources, measure performance, schedule, design production
facilities and systems, manage the supply chain, set prices, coordinate transportation
and distribution, or analyze large databases.

The duties of operations research analysts vary according to the structure and
management of the organizations they are assisting. Some firms centralize
operations research in one department; others use operations research in each
division. Many analysts work with management consulting companies that perform
contract work for other firms. Analysts working in these positions often have areas of
specialization, such as transportation or finance. Because problems are very complex
and often require expertise from many disciplines, most analysts work in teams.

Teams of analysts usually start projects by listening to managers describe problems.

Analysts ask questions and search for data that may help to formally define a
problem. For example, an operations research team for an auto manufacturer may be
asked to determine the best inventory level for each of the parts needed on a
production line and to determine the optimal number of windshields to be kept in
stock. Too many windshields would be wasteful and expensive, whereas too few
could halt production.

Analysts study the problem, breaking it into its components. Then they gather
information from a variety of sources. To determine the optimal inventory, operations
research analysts might talk with engineers about production levels, discuss
purchasing arrangements with buyers, and examine storage-cost data provided by
the accounting department. They might also find data on past inventory levels or
other statistics that may help them to project their needs.

Relevant information in hand, the team determines the most appropriate analytical
technique. Techniques used may include Monte Carlo simulations, linear and
nonlinear programming, dynamic programming, queuing and other stochastic-
process models, Markov decision processes, econometric methods, data
envelopment analysis, neural networks, expert systems, decision analysis, and the
analytic hierarchy process. Nearly all of these techniques involve the construction of
mathematical models that attempt to describe the system. The problem of the
windshields, for example, would be described as a set of equations that represent
real-world conditions.
Using these models, the team can explicitly describe the different components and
clarify the relationships among them. The model’s inputs can then be altered to
examine what might happen to the system under different circumstances. In most
cases, a computer program is used to numerically evaluate the model.

A team will often run the model with a variety of different inputs to determine the
results of each change. A model for airline flight scheduling, for example, might
stipulate such things as connecting cities, the amount of fuel required to fly the
routes, projected levels of passenger demand, varying ticket and fuel prices, pilot
scheduling, and maintenance costs. Analysts may also use optimization techniques to
determine the most cost effective or profit-maximizing solution for the airline.

Based on the results of the analysis, the operations research team presents
recommendations to managers. Managers may ask analysts to modify and rerun the
model with different inputs or change some aspect of the model before making their
decisions. Once a manager reaches a final decision, the team usually works with
others in the organization to ensure the plan's successful implementation.

Work environment. Operations research analysts generally work 40 hours a week;

some, however, work longer. While most of their work is done in an office
environment, they may spend time in the field, analyzing processes through direct
observation. Because they work on projects that are of immediate interest to top
managers, operations research analysts often are under pressure to meet deadlines.

Management is the process of getting activities completed efficiently and effectively

with and through other people.

Management functions:

Planning
Organizing
Staffing
Directing
Coordinating
Reporting
Budgeting