Operations Management and Ethics
Zeivier Reyes
Operations Management and Ethics
Operations Management is a competitive strategy that optimizes design, operation, and improvement of decisions made about facilities, inventories, capacity, performance, quality control, purchasing, and so forth(Russell, & Taylor, 2003). Operations management is about the way organizations produce goods and services. The function itself can engage up to 80 per cent of an organization's resources, including labor, equipment and capital needs. In an era where the success of an organization is dependent upon the efficient and effective use of its resources, one can appreciate the need for everyone within an organization to have a sound understanding of the principles of operations management and the manner in which competitive advantage can be sustained through the superior application of them. This definition reflects the essential nature of Operations Management: it is a central activity in organizing things. Another way of looking is to consider Operations are a transformation process: they convert a set of resources (INPUTS) into services and goods. (Davis, Markland, & Vickery, 1995).
Effective operations management is a critical, competitive, strategic force in any organization as it has the capacity to reduce operational cost significantly and to improve efficiency. Operations make wide-ranging decisions about such things as purchasing goods and services, leasing or buying facilities, quality control, and so forth that directly affect operational efficiency. One might say that good operations managers are those who get the job done for their organizations in the most efficient mann ...