University Operations Management and Decision-Making Reflection Report

This document presents a student's comprehensive reflection on an Operations Management and Decision-Making Models course (MBA503). The reflection covers key concepts such as operations as a competitive weapon, supply chain management, internal and external factors impacting operational performance, business process design, and facilities management. The student also discusses the importance of forecasting, operations in service industries, operational improvement through quality management (TQM), the use of operating data and ERP technology, and decision-making approaches. Furthermore, the reflection delves into ethical decision-making models and operations management in the 21st century. The student's experience with a group presentation on Toyota's operations management is also detailed, including the application of learned concepts, insights on logistics, and the importance of finance and human resources. The reflection highlights changes in the student's understanding of operations management, the impact of the course on their future career aspirations, and the challenges overcome during group work. The document also provides a bibliography of relevant sources.

Operations Management and Decision
making models
Week Reflection

Week 1- The nature of operations management –
Operations as a competitive weapon
• In this week the in the operation management as a process has been
defined.
• We came to know that it deals with the processes which produce gods and
the services used by people everyday.
• It is also an effective management of the processes which can give the
companies competitive edge.
• The week lectures described the operations management to be a
competitive weapon and well elaborated the process, the value chain, the
trends and challenges of operations management

Week 2 -Supply chain management and logistics –
introducing the value chain concept
• This week solely focused on the supply chain management and
logistics having introduced the value chain concept.
• I have learnt that the supply chain management is a process of
linking the major business methods in the organizations into a
high-performing business model which drives the competitive
advantage.
• On the other hand, logistics is the storage, movement and flow
of the goods along with the information in the organization.
• I have also understood the role of the logistics as an essential
component of the supply chain management. It consists of the
planning , carrying out, and the management of the services
/goods.

week 3 - The impact of internal and external factors on
operational performance
• This week lectures introduced us with the internal and
the external factors that impact on the operational
management of a particular business.
• We understood that as far as the internal factors are
concerned, the corporate objectives, the finance, the
human resources, marketing issues are the major ones.
• Similarly, the external factors are the economic
condition, the competitor efficiency flexibility, the
technological change, legal and the environmental
change.

Week 4 - Designing and managing business processes
• This course lectures involved the designing and managing the
business processes for supporting the strategic objectives in the
best possible way in the organization.
• It described a framework which allowed a process designer to
know well what particularly needs to be understood about the
process.
• The business process management is a highly challenging
in ,most of the organizations. The businesses do not invest
enough efforts in streamlining their business processes .
• I have understood that it is the way how a company creates,
edits, analyzes the predictable processes which make up the
core of the business.

Week 5 & 6 -Facilities management – the importance of
forecasting
• In the week 5, the facilities management was the topic of concern. The
focus was also on the importance of forecasting. The study week was the
week 6 where we were given time to study the studying materials.
• The subject has made me understand that the facilities management is an
essential part of the operations management. Moreover, it is an
inseparable part of the decision –making change process.
• It has shaped my understanding of the business operations as an
operations manager in future.
• Now, I am aware of the fact that the main objective of a company is to cut
the expenses, advance the staff productivity and enhance the ROI.
• Hence, an effective facilities management is crucial for a business.
• The reason is that it covers all the business aspects along with their role in
the strategic planning which helps a company to achieve the objectives.

Week 7- Operations management in service industries
• Previously I was unawares of the fact that the operations
management for the service industries is different from the
operation management in general.
• The operations management for the services has the
functional responsibility to produce the services ad reach
them directly to the customers.
• I have also learnt that it deals with the decisions required by
the operations managers particularly for the simultaneous
production and consumption too.

Week 8 - Operational improvement through quality
management - TQM
• This week lectures focused on how the TQM
interventions help with the predictions and the pre-
empting errors along with the unproductive activities.
• The total quality management improves the efficiencies
and bring various benefits to the organizations.
• Few of the major benefits of TQM are the costs
savings ,time reductions.
• The TQM will be one of the biggest concerns for me as an
operations manager in an organization.

Week 9 - The effective use of operating data – the utilisation
of technology – Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• This week made us know the use of the operating data in
various business processes.
• I have learnt that the operating data usage is crucial for a
business as it helps in the advancement of the
transportations.
• This is because the MPOs and the DOTs shift to a
performance based planning process which needs the
system performance data in order to guide the decision
making process.
• After the completion of this week, I have known the
utilization of the ERP technology.

Week 10- Decision-making – approaches and techniques
• After the completion of this week, I have come to
know that decision –making in an organization is
closely related with the operations management.
• The decision making is one of the most essential
functions of a manager who takes the decisions for a
particular organization. The success or the failure of
an organization depends on the quality of the
decision.
• The managerial decisions are concerned with the
decision-making process.

Week 11- Conceptual models for ethical decision-making – the corporation looking
inward – the establishment and maintenance of corporate values corporations looking
outward – CSR, environmental issues and the ethics of international business
• The decision making process is not complete without the
models designed for the ethical decision making.
• As per my understanding, ethics is beyond only doing the
right thing. It is tied to the legal procedures along with the
policies which can put an organization on trouble.
• The week taught us about the conceptual model for the
moral decision making . Such models concentrate on
explaining the higher –order of the cognitive faculties.
Taken for example, the deliberation and planning.

Week 12- Operations management in the 21st century
– Where to from here?
• This week talked about the operations management in the 21st century
and the trends.
• It taught us about how to manage the operations effectively in the
highly competitive industry.
• In this century, the target is always to implement innovation in the
operations management and the supply chain.
• I have clearly understood after this week that there is a need to explore
the best practices and the most commonly used operations along with
the innovation business models, the tools and the methods.
• This department ensures that all the resources of an organisation are
effectively utilized to produce goods in most efficient way to meet
various needs of the customer.

About the group presentation experience
• As a group presentation, we have done the Toyota operations
management case study analysis.
• After undergoing the lectures, I have come to understand that the
manufacturing inputs are the raw materials, the employees, plant,
equipments and the financing.
• The outputs are the consumer goods, the materials for the purchase by
others, the services and the payments to the employees.
• After undergoing week 2, I have decided that In my future endeavors in
the field of operations management, I will consider the logistics to be a
critical blueprint of the supply chain.
• As per my own understanding, I have found the finance and the human
resources to be two essential factors for a smooth operational
performance.

About the group presentation experience
• In future, I will be focused on such factors for operating in an enterprise.
• My future career will concentrate on learning how the business process of a
company can be developed. The weeks have taught me breaking my previous
assumptions that the operations management in service industry is different from
the operations management of the manufacturing organizations.
• The Toyota case study has made us learn that it has most advanced techniques for
operation management in production as well as distribution of its products.
• In this regard, I would like to say that after the Toyota group presentation, I have
learnt that Toyota operation management is the department whose main focus is
to oversee the designing as well as the redesigning of the product made in this
organisation.
• My concepts related to decision making have changed after undergoing first and
second assignments and the workshops. Although we faced some challenges in
the communication and decision making part, we overcame the difficulties
through mutual understanding each others’ opinions.

Bibliography
• Radhakrishnan, N.S., Singh, H. and Southwick, F.S., 2019. Teaching novice clinicians how to reduce diagnostic waste and errors by
applying the Toyota Production System. Diagnosis.
• Wagner, T., Herrmann, C. and Thiede, S., 2017. Industry 4.0 impacts on lean production systems. Procedia CIRP, 63, pp.125-131.
• Monden, Y., 2018. Toyota management system: Linking the seven key functional areas. Routledge.
• Amasaka, K., 2016. Innovation of automobile manufacturing fundamentals employing New JIT: Developing Advance Toyota
Production System at Toyota Manufacturing USA. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Production and Operations Management,
Havana, Cuba, International Conference Center (pp. 1-10).
• Suh, Y., 2015. A global knowledge transfer network: The case of Toyota's global production support system. International Journal
of Productivity and Quality Management, 15(2), pp.237-251.
• Chiarini, A., 2016. Lean Organisation for Excellence. Hoshin Kanri, Value Stream Accounting, Lean Metrics e Toyota Production
System e Lean Agile Scrum: Hoshin Kanri, Value Stream Accounting, Lean Metrics e Toyota Production System e Lean Agile Scrum.
FrancoAngeli.
• Elbert, M., 2018. Lean production for the small company. Productivity Press.
• Netland, T., Ferdows, K. and Sanchez, E., 2015. How company-specific production systems affect plant performance: the S-curve
theory. Production and Operations Management, 24(3), pp.362-364.
• Yin, Y., Stecke, K.E., Swink, M. and Kaku, I., 2017. Lessons from seru production on manufacturing competitively in a high cost
environment. Journal of Operations Management, 49, pp.67-76.
• Hines, P., 2016. Toyota supplier system in Japan and the UK. In Developments in Logistics and Supply Chain Management(pp. 113-
124). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
• Imai, N., 2017. Toyota Production System for Business Process Management. Holistic Business Process Management: Theory And
Pratice, 14, p.57.
• Yin, Y., Stecke, K.E. and Li, D., 2018. The evolution of production systems from Industry 2.0 through Industry 4.0. International
Journal of Production Research, 56(1-2), pp.848-861.

Thank You