COURSE OVERVIEW:
Operations strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape the long-term capabilities of any type of operations and their contribution to the overall strategy.
Operations strategies drive a company’s operations, the part of the business that produces and distributes goods and services. Operations strategy underlies overall business strategy, and both are critical for a company to compete in an ever-changing market. With an effective ops strategy, operations management professionals can optimise the use of resources, people, processes, and technology.
Operations strategy is only one part of overall business or corporate strategy, but it’s crucial for competitiveness and success. Without a strong operations strategy, companies fail to keep up with changing markets and lose out to more strategic competitors. Many companies, big and small, have struggled with operations strategy, often lacking in comparison with technologically savvy competitors. For example, Amazon, while constantly advancing technology such as drones for delivery, has pushed aside myriad brick-and-mortar retailers.
To be effective and competitive, all parts of a company must work together. All departments should contribute to the company mission and have strategies underlying the overall corporate/business strategy. In addition to having an operations strategy, they should also have functional area strategies in finance, IT, sales, marketing, human resources, and possibly other departments, depending on the type of business.
An operations strategy should guide the structural decisions and the evolution of operational capabilities needed to achieve the desired competitive position of the company as a whole.
This course provides a selection of essential competencies in the operations strategy field, it consists of over 10 competencies in operations strategy including: performance, operations strategy, operations strategy process, trade-offs, location, capacity, process, layout, technology management, flexibility and real options. This course compares and contrasts each of these competencies, clearly describing each, to help you understand how each interrelates to the others and how, if properly applied, they will help any organisation to be a success.
LEARNING OUTCOMES:
By the end of this course, you will be able to understand:
- The importance of operations strategy
- The operations strategy framework
- Internal versus external performance
- The five dimensions of internal performance of an operations system
- The dynamics of performance management
- What is operations strategy?
- Positioning resource and reconciliation decisions
- The three techniques that can be used to help managers make positioning decisions
- The best practices which are important in operations management
- The operations strategy charts
- The operations strategy process
- A generic model of the operations strategy process
- The top-down approaches to operations strategy
- The characteristics of the top-down approach
- The bottom-up approaches to operations strategy
- The common shared characteristics of bottom-up models
- What is trade-offs?
- The strategic trade-off debate
- How to avoid trade-offs through innovation?
- The theory of performance frontiers
- The nature of location decisions
- The complexity of location decisions
- The structure of location decisions
- The three generic steps to location decisions
- The strategic factors in location decisions
- The location decision techniques
- How to measure capacity?
- The importance of differentiating several concepts related to capacity
- How to adjust capacity decision?
- The process alignment
- The service process matrix
- The capital intensity
- The process (functional) layouts
- The product layout design
- Assembly line balancing
- The service layout design
- Technology management
- Technology transfer
- Technology diffusion
- Absorptive capacity and technology readiness
- Flexibility as a capability
- Flexibility as a performance dimension
- The four key traditional strategies for competing on flexibility
- How to invest in process flexibility?
- Real options thinking
- Real options and the evaluation of investments
- The types of real options
- Real options in international operations management
COURSE DURATION:
The typical duration of this course is approximately 2-3 hours to complete. Your enrolment is Valid for 12 Months. Start anytime and study at your own pace.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
You must have access to a computer or any mobile device with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free PDF Viewer) installed, to complete this course.
COURSE DELIVERY:
Purchase and download course content.
ASSESSMENT:
A simple 10-question true or false quiz with Unlimited Submission Attempts.
CERTIFICATION:
Upon course completion, you will receive a customised digital “Certificate of Completion”.