Operations Management Economics

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Operations Management

1. What is operations management? Why is it important? Is a good knowledge of operations management more important in service or manufacturing industries? Explain your answer.

2. Discuss the use of PERT/CPM techniques for managing projects. Describe what PERT/CPM does. Discuss advantages and disadvantages of using it. What other techniques might you choose to manage your project?

3. What are economies of scale in a manufacturing plant? Do they continue forever? What are diseconomies of scale? How might you decide the optimal size of a plant?

4. What, in your opinion are the 3 most important issues in supply chain management. Discuss why you think these are the key issues.

5. Discuss why (or if) inventories are necessary. What are the benefits of inventories? What are the disadvantages of holding inventories?

Operations Management
Operations and supply chain management (OSM) includes the design, operation, and improvement of the processes that create and deliver a firm's products and services. OSM encompasses the entire management that produces a good or delivers a service. It is important to understand the key terms of operations and supply. For example, operations refer to the manufacturing and service processes used to transform resources into products that are used by consumers. Supply refers to the supply chain processes that move information and material to and from the manufacturing and service processes of the organization. For example, the logistics used that moves products through the process (Jacobs & Chase, 2010).
The importance of operations management is vital because having an efficient and effective OSM understanding can create more value to a firm. For example, saving one dollar in how a product is produced results directly to the profit of a firm. As operations and supply chain management ...