In defining an organization we usually come across two major categories of organizations.
First Manufacturing organization and the other Service organization. Both, above-mentioned organizations are completely different from one another and hence the role of operations management is different in both. Operations management is mainly concerned with making the proper use of available resources of the organization. Resources available to the organizations are completely different and are used by them in differently.Looking at the broader picture in a manufacturing organizations productivity is easily measured because of the production of tangible products whereas in service organizations it’s difficult to measure productivity because products are intangible (Dilworth, 2000). According to Krajewski and Ritzman (2002) the differences between the services and goods production can be classified as: Manufactured goods are physical and durable products whose quality can be measured easily whereas services are perishable products like ideas and concepts with high degree of customer contact and there quality cannot be measured easily.
Operation Managers are the people responsible for almost all activities concerned with the production of goods or services of organizations, they convert the ideas into final products. Operation managers usually work with all the other departments of a company because all the other departments are closely related to the operations department. Slack et al. (2010) has cited that wherever the word ‘produce’ is used there is some operation function associated to it. Both type of organizations have objectives of making profits from producing products or services.In manufacturing organization operations management make the use of machines to effectively assemble products whereas in service organization the operations management uses ideas and information for fulfilling the needs of consumers.
In service organization it is difficult to establish quality standards and product quality is difficult to evaluate. Therefore, it can be concluded that operations management is completely a distinct subject in the two different organizations (Slack et al. 2010; Reid and Sanders 2010; Bowen and Ford 2002; Dilworth, 2000). Further, it can be said that service industry is not isolated from frequent customers interaction. The customer actually goes into the service organization to receive services and there is a major consumer-organization contact. The best examples can be of hospitals and colleges, where patients and students are the customers respectively.
So the operations department and customers contact each-other directly.But, in manufacturing organizations the consumer-organization contact is bare minimum and organization could increase and decrease the inventory of finished products depending upon the market requirements. A good example would be an automobile manufacturing company. In this organization the consumer is only in contact with the dealer, rather then the manufacturer. Hence, in such organizations the operations department is in contact with the company’s resources and machinery rather then the customers (Krajewski and Ritzman, 2002; Dilworth, 2000).
In contradiction to the above statements Winter and Kellogg (1999) described decisions and choices which operations managers make are related to following area: location, layout, product design, process choice, capacity, quality, productivity, inventory, technology, work force and job design (e. g. , Chase and Aquilano 1998; Heizer and Render 1996; Stevenson 1996). Therefore it becomes clear that the strategies on which operation manager’s work are pretty similar and they apply in similar ways in the field of service and manufacturing organizations.But all the manufacturing corporations don’t produce the same products and similarly all the service providers don’t provide the same services therefore, from above mentioned, only relevant choices apply to both organizations.
Therefore, in some way a conclusion can be drawn and stated that operation managers in manufacturing organizations and service organizations undertake similar decisions. We can argument here, that if people in the operations department make somewhat similar choices in service and manufacturing environments then why should we treat them differently.It is agreed that services are non-tangible and goods are tangible, the customer-organization contact is high in one and almost negligible in other organization. But as Winter and Kellogg (1995) stated a term “customer influence”. So, the customer plays a major role in both the organizations.
Either customer is in direct contact with operation department, like in service industry, or in no contact with operation department, in manufacturing industry. But manufacturing firms now have a strategy of customer focus, and they concentrate on those factors which provide value to customers (Johnson, 1990 Cited by Perera et al. 1997).The customer influences the choices of the operation department of both organizations. Therefore, it does not look feasible to consider operations management as a separate subject for service and manufacturing organizations. In view of Bowen and Ford (2002) “marketing scholars have discussed the differences extensively, but management scholars have rather discussed similarities.
” Hence, according to Bowen and Ford, even the scholars are in doubt whether to recognize operations management as a separate subject or the same for service and manufacturing industry.In conclusion, I agree with Winter and Kellogg (1999), the operation managers face challenges in service industry due to factors like intangibility and inseparability of production and consumption. The operation managers in manufacturing industry work on theories, tools and techniques developed in manufacturing organizations, which restrict them to be applied in service industry. Therefore it is difficult to say whether operations management should be treated as same or as a different subject in manufacturing and service organizations.
