Operation Management (OM)aims to channel resources to services and manufacture products and services known globally. It focuses on various implementation methods to enhance product rates and guarantee high standards. The paper discusses three operation management topics: Inventory Management, Quality Management, and Supply Chain management. They are the pivotal elements in the operation management model, which results in high performance. This paper aims to explore these topics to discuss the overall effect on operation excellence.
Operation Management Topics
Inventory Management
Inventory management is a vital area of Operations Management, and it is concerned with controlling and managing levels of raw materials, unfinished items, and finished products, all of which are done in proper order. In contrast, this crucial location needs to be improved, with the difficulty of balancing between keeping the suitable inventory levels and meeting demand requirements. This avoids extra stock that may consume costly storage facilities or occupy the capital (Gérard et al., 2023). Inventory control follows three main principles: planning correctly, forecasting customer orders correctly, and the physical movement of stock and goods through the supply chain. Managing the warehousing operations method is dedicated to finding the best order quantity, which helps minimize the costs of total inventory investment. It performs well productively, supplying the market needs, canceling excess pledges, and disposing of costly goods that have low value to the company.
Moreover, inventory management affects efficient operation and competitive advantage. Having proper management pays offloading and carrying costs as well as working capital improvement (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). Inventory management allows less stockout, and orders are on time. It is also a way of creating market opportunities, meeting customer needs efficiently, and responding to market changes.
Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management’s (SCM) role in operation management is to ensure that inventory flows smoothly to consumers of finished goods from the original raw material. The system is built on three fundamental pillars: distribution, production, and sales. When selecting suppliers, it involves efficiency, diligence, and quality. Production is enhanced by converting raw materials to finished goods utilizing economic operation and a responsive production system, thus meeting consumers’ demands (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). The distribution process heavily relies on logistics and warehouse networks, ensuring the delivery of products to buyers. The stage is essential in managing supply chain integrity, thus confirming the timely delivery of products in good condition.
This partnership is essential for realizing the intensity and good nature of SCM and supply-consumer interactions. It is normative for the alliance to uphold the cause of collaboration and transparency; hence, it fosters a partnership that mutually benefits the partners (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). The companies can achieve higher operational efficiency and incremental customer satisfaction by systematically tuning the elements along the supply chain and creating formal partnerships.
Quality Management
Quality Management (QM) encompasses a systemic and strategic system of practical tools, methods, procedures, and standards to raise the bar on everything in the business to satisfy customer expectations and attain good performance. QM’s core principles are built around high standards in customer focus and never-ending quest. Based on these principles, finding and satisfying the customers’ needs and forever improving and evolving practices, goods, and services are the driving forces (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). The combination of such values led to developing the mentioned methodologies, like “Six Sigma and Total Quality Management” (TQM), which are vital in transferring these ideas into actionable results. Six Sigma provides a highly disciplined, data-centric route that aims to reduce defects and variability throughout a process to achieve the ultimate goal of superiority in quality and efficiency. Meanwhile, TQM influences the concept of a strategic approach for total organizational excellence over the long run. It involves customer satisfaction and each organizational member’s participation in a collective attempt to improve process quality, product integrity, and service excellence.
Implementing QM practices results in advantages directly related to the organization’s operational performance and competitive position. Through increasing productivity and streamlining processes, QM helps reduce the cost of operations. Improvement in product quality not only endears customers to the brand but also builds client confidence in the reliability of service, which subsequently creates customer loyalty and attracts new audiences (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). This strategic concentration on quality at every level and process organization-wide creates a culture of excellence, inspiring innovation and continuous improvement.
Interrelation of Topics
Inventory management, supply chain management (SCM), and quality management (QM) depend on each other to make the operations management system efficient. Inventory Management plays a role in linking the QM and the SCM, as it meets the demands while simultaneously ensuring consistency of quality (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). However, such inventory management stems from continuously interacting with suppliers to ensure they get raw materials on time.
Supply Chain Management plays a significant role in managing a supply chain, which has implications for inventory management and quality issue management. It is the backbone of sourcing services, operations, and distribution (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). It is produced to avoid a situation of inventory duplication where the demand is high. SCM faces three core challenges it confronts through a systematic procedure to make the supply chain processes seamless and establish strong supplier relations that expedite the delivery of critical materials, thereby allowing inventory to be well-stocked. Also, the SCM bundles quality assurance and supply chain collaboration into a system that aligns with the QM system, which is a broad scope of product quality and mutual gains through relationship development.
Furthermore, QM is a key that connects inventory management and SCM with Operations Management. QM principles guard the quality standards of operations for organizations, covering inventory management and supply chain processes. Implementing quality control measures and continuous improvement projects is the strength of QM that increases the dependability and productivity of the supply chain’s inventory management processes and operations (Gérard Cachon & Terwiesch, 2023). Moreover, QM supports collaboration and accountability, building up multifunctional teams to work out quality-related issues, monitor inventory level performance, and advance supply chain operations. Internal Management, Supply Chain Management, and QM must be synchronized to develop an operational Management system that promotes efficiency, customer satisfaction, and sustainable growth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, inventory management, supply chain management (SCM), and quality management (QM) are fundamental in providing a more robust operations management framework. The three pillars are interwoven; each one is indispensable in enhancing daily task completion, serving customers, and guaranteeing the prosperity of the business. Inventory Management allows businesses to regulate inventory levels, reduce costs, and achieve customer satisfaction. The SCM gives an uninterrupted supply of goods and services, allowing for supplier partnerships and a more flexible business operation. QM establishes criteria and standard performance indicators that all organization processes should meet to ensure consistent improvement and loyal clients. The statement of principles covers a framework that integrates the processes in organizations, enhances competitiveness, and promotes sustainable growth. The coordinated work of all three, SCM, QM, and Inventory Management, allows for addressing the current issues of the corporate world and eventually staying ahead of the competition.
Reference
Gérard Cachon, & Terwiesch, C. (2023). Operations management (3rd ed.). Mcgraw-Hill Education.
write