Final Answers 1 Essay

Operations management refers to all levels of an organisation and how best to efficiently convene, fund, maintain and maximise its services and/or operations, both internal and external. The core goal/objective of operations management it to maximise outputs while reducing and minimising the inputs required to achieve the desired results.

The key for the marketer is to determine which stage is the most critical for his/her product.

Per Satterlee, chapter eight of Organization Management and Leadership, is about operations management, which is how products or services are provided in the most efficient and effective way. “Operations management is the implementation of all the functions of management,” (Satterlee, p. 224). This includes where infrastructure may be built, where supplies and materials are obtained, production is scheduled, inventory is managed, and equipment is maintained.

Product or program development typically includes a discovery phase during which the environmental landscape is examined and a level of empathy for the customer’s needs wants and wishes is established. Then beta testing of a product typically takes place with a small customer base.

James, T. (2011) defines Operations Management as the management of the processes which aid production of goods and or services. This implies that all production activities must be coordinated well to ensure a lean process of resource management is adopted.

Operations Management in an organisation is repsonsible for managing and in making decisions concerning the activities that convert inputs into outputs , that is goods and services. This covers both short term actvities as well as longer term activities to meet strategic goals. Inputs can be the raw materaials need to manufacture goods such as furniture or the computers needed to create a service like online shopping site. Operation management’s role is to make decisions to improve how operation activities function, for example, to improve the final quality of the output or to change production methods to be more efficient in terms of cost and in time.

Operations management (OM) is that phase of an organization where inputs are put into operations to acquire required output (services) without compromising on quality. In other words operations management is also described as combining and transforming various resources in the operations sub-system into value added services in line with formulated policies of the organization. (Kumar and Suresh, 2009)

Operations Management is responsible for designing, operating and improving productive systems or in layman’s terms, systems for getting work done. Operations Managers are found in all walks of life. In anything you basically do or have done there are operations managers. When you go to the store, when you buy gas, in factories, in hospitals, banks even in your government there are operation managers. They are the ones who design systems, who ensure the quality of your

The product life cycle concept derives from the phases through which a product undergoes, from its introduction, to its growth in the market, to the maturity it attains in that market, to the very last stage of declination. The

Product life cycle refers to the stages that a product. Changes in demand for the product is the factor that delineates the changes from one cycle to another (Daft & Sanders, 2012). The typical product life cycle has four identifiable stages;

However, marketers should not become complacent and they may seek to inject new life into the brand to prolong the growth stage and put off the onset of maturity. A mature product may need a facelift, and marketers must decide whether to support a declining brand or let it die a natural death.

Operations management focuses on managing the processes of producing and distributing products and services. Operations activities often include product creation, development, production and distribution. It deals with all operations within the organization. Related activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations. The nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of products or services in the organization, for example, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc.

Operations management is generally described as the planning, arrangement, and control of activities that change raw materials or an organization's input into finished products and services. The overall activities covered by operations management include the creation, development, manufacture, and distribution of products. The concept also relates to various activities such as inventory control, controlling purchases, quality control, logistics, storage, and evaluation ("Operations Management in McDonalds", n.d.). Since operations management covers the entire operations in an organization, it mainly focuses on the efficiency and effectiveness of the firm's processes.

The development of new product as the Morgan EV3 undergoes (as for every project) different stages within the life cycle of the project, and different phases before a task or a solution to a problem is completed. It is known that a typical project life cycle passes through four phases, which Heerkens (2002, p.12) categorises as:

4. Development: The development stage is where the company 's creates specifications of the product, the design, and prototypes. It is also in this stage that the company considers manufacturing constraints.