Operations Management (OM)

OM is a functional discipline of management. OM is not the same as OR (Operations Research). Though, OM and OR share common origins, OM has established itself as a separate functional discipline.

OM versus OR

"I increasingly see research that would have been called operations research, being called operations management"- Prof. Chris Voss.

Many PhD aspirants and management researchers seems to be confused between OM and OR (Operations Research). OM and OR are not the same, they are different. OM (along with Finance, Marketing, HR, Strategy) is a functional discipline in management. OR is very useful to solve problems in each of these functional disciplines i.e. OR is used to solve problems in Finance, Marketing, HR, Operations (OM).

Example 1: Formulating the managerial situation for computing the optimal amount of raw material to be ordered to produce a product is OM. Devising a novel algorithm or using an existing one to compute that optimal amount of raw material is OR. This optimal amount is used by OM to make purchasing decisions.

Example 2: What actions do firms take to manage supply chain disruptions (like earthquakes)? What manufacturing strategy should a firm adopt to produce a new product i.e. should they produce in the existing plant or produce in a new plant? Which part of their products to outsource for contract manufacturing? Answering these questions requires functional knowledge of OM. These questions do not require OR.

If you are still not convinced, take any good OM textbook (they are listed in this page) and OR textbook and go through the table of contents. You will quickly realise that OM is not the same as OR. For example, we have a journal Production & Operations Management...we also have a journal Operations Research. There are also different professional societies for OM and OR. Scholars in India have formed a society for OR: Operational Research Society of India (ORSI), and a society for OM: Society of Operations Management (SOM).

The following article discuss some classic works in OM area:

Victor E. Sower, Jaideep Motwani, Michael J. Savoie, (1997). Classics in production and operations management. International Journal of Operations & Production Management. The article can be obtained as free pdf when you google.

The following article clarifies several myths surrounding what OM is:

Richard Chase & Eric Prentis (1987). Operations management: A field rediscovered. Journal of Management.

OM is not glamorous. It has got synonyms like "down to earth", "getting your hands dirty", "nuts and bolts", "details". It is the core work of firms. It deals with designing and analysing processes that does this core work. In this way, the processes can be improved. What do I mean by core work? It is treating patients (in hospitals), manufacturing products (in manufacturing firms), educating students (in universities), drug discovery and development (in pharma firms), supplying drinking water to citizens (in water supply boards), printing and supplying currency (in federal reserve banks), etc. The recent Kumbh Mela (in 2013) at Allahabad, India was covered by a group of faculty and students to document and analyze the processes involved in successful functioning of the religious gathering. This is also OM! See http://mappingthemela.wordpress.com/.

My intent is not to create disciplinary boundaries/demarcations here...all I'm trying to say is one should not confuse OM with OR. The origins of OM discipline can be traced to OR, Mathematics, Economics. In fact, economists have made fundamental contributions to OM...during those times (early 20th century), even the concept of management as an academic discipline was at a nascent stage.

Acknowledgments: This write-up of OM versus OR, is partly inspired from the discussion we (my doctoral student colleagues Prakash, Sirish, Deepika, Sreedevi, Kiran, and Sivakumar) had during one of our POM Forums at IIMB during 2013. Apart from this, I had an intense discussion with Sirish, Prakash, and Deepika (not sure if Ashoke was there) on what OM is and what it is not. I thank all of them for their brilliant thoughts. Last but not the least, I thank a Professor (who does not wish to be cited) for her sharp questions and comments which made me think hard. I had the first discussion on "what is OM?", with this Professor.

Understanding situations, we encounter everyday, from an OM perspective

These are some very good blogs (by OM Professors) that helps you understand real-life situations using an OM angle. These are also a good source of research ideas.

1) Matching Supply with Demand: http://mswd.wordpress.com/

2) The Operations Room: http://operationsroom.wordpress.com/

3) The OM Group @ ISB Hyderabad: http://blogs.isb.edu/om/

4) There is also an aggregated operations and suppy chain news site: http://www.oprules.com/.

5) Global Supply Chain Musings: http://aviyer2010.wordpress.com/

6) Jay and Barry's OM Blog: http://heizerrenderom.wordpress.com/

7) Prof. Andreas Wieland's Supply Chain Blog: http://scmresearch.org/

*I thank Prof. Ganesh Kumar (Indian Institute of Plantation Management) for introducing me to this blog.

8) Blog by UCLA faculty: http://blogs.anderson.ucla.edu/global-supply-chain/

9) An interesting blog that introduces an integrated approach to OM i.e. OM with Finance, Marketing, OB, Information Systems, Strategy: https://sites.google.com/site/operationsinterfaces/

By the way, I would also like to introduce to another OM blog (inactive), initiated and run by my colleague Sirish Kumar Gouda: http://iimbpomblog.wordpress.com/

OM in India

The Society of Operations Management (SOM) http://www.soc-om.org/

The society conducts a conference, annually. Once upon a time, there was an academic journal Technology Operation Management edited by Devanath Tirupati. This journal is now defunct.

The OM academic community in India have not lived up to the expectations (if any) and is a backward looking community. Apart from a few journal publications here and there by OM scholars, there has been no visible efforts to develop the discipline and a build lively community. The conference that is conducted annually is not a vibrant or lively one. There is a lack of debate, discussion, dialogues on new ideas in the conference. Practitioners / policy makers are seldom invited to the conference.

When our country's policy makers discuss issues in public distribution system, the OM guys (ideally) need to pitch-in with their ideas on supply chain management. Unfortunately, we remain mum on all such issues. We remain cocooned within our comfort zones. For example, take the case of the recent decision by the Indian Government on withdrawal of certain currencies and replacing them with new currencies (popularly called demonetization). All of us would have felt difficulties during those months. The Government itself said regarding the need for appropriate supply chain/logistics management (to manage cash). Do I need to say more on the application of production planning and supply chain theories in such situations? The more recent Covid-19 situation is another striking case. The Government is struggling to formulate/develop an efficient supply chain to distribute Covid-19 vaccines. As usual, the OM guys in India are mum.

We have OM scholars in India who consider themselves to be experts in OM, they have published papers in A*/Elite journals , have published books on operations and supply chains. But, none of them were consulted by the Government during the demonetization. None of them came up with ideas on effectively managing this supply chain. The situation is the same in the case of Covid-19 vaccine supply chain. In fact, I believe that it is a national shame to OM scholars (including me) that we are not contributing by using our theories when the country badly needs it. I fantasize a day when a group of OM scholars protest during an SOM Conference by showing placards that urge scholars to stop romanticizing OM research.

It is time we change this status-quo. I wish to bring a change...please do let me know, if you are interested. Together, we can bring change!

Good general articles/forums on OM research

1) Operations & Supply Chain Management Forum (https://wpcarey.asu.edu/research/jom/osm-forum). This webpage is not active now. But, this was a good initiative.

2) What is Interesting in OM? by Prof. Gerard Cachon (http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~cachon/pdf/Interesting_v3.pdf)

3) Thoughts on the state of OM by Prof. Chriss Voss (http://om.aomonline.org/dyn/news/Editorial_Voss.pdf)

4) Hayes, R. H. (2008). POM Forum: operations management's next source of galvanizing energy?. Production and Operations Management, 17(6), 567-572.

5) A four-decade view of changes in OM by Professors Jay Heizer, Barry Render, and Jeff Heyl

(https://www.informs.org/ORMS-Today/Public-Articles/February-Volume-38-Number-1/ISSUES-IN-EDUCATION)

6) Schmenner, R. W., & Swink, M. L. (1998). On theory in operations management. Journal of Operations Management, 17(1), 97-113.

7) Sodhi, M. S., & Tang, C. S. (2014). Guiding the next generation of doctoral students in operations management. International Journal of Production Economics, 150, 28-36.

Good books on OM

Most text books in the market confuse OM with operations research, forecasting, optimization models, etc. Following books are the real ones that says what OM is all about.

Non-textbook OM

1) "The Goal" by Eliyahu Goldratt. This is a must-read book for OM enthusiasts, MBA students, and doctoral students.

2) "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters: The Battle for the Soul of American Business" by Bob Lutz.

3) "The Machine That Changed the World" by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos.

4) "The Development Factory: Unlocking the Potential of Process Innovation" by Gary P. Pisano.

5) "Getting and Staying Productive: Applying Swift, Even Flow to Practice" by Roger Schmenner.

6) "The Lean Anthology: A Practical Primer in Continual Improvement" by Elliot Weiss. This is an off-beat book with respect to the presentation and writing style.

7) "Common Sense Supply Chain Management" by Tom DePaoli.

8) "The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right" by Atul Gawande. This is not your typical operations management book. But, this book has plenty of 'operations' and 'processes' :)

9) "Execution:The Discipline of Getting Things Done" by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan.

11) "The LIVING Supply Chain" by Robert Handfield and Tom Linton.

12) "The New Supply Chain Agenda" by Reuben Slone et al.

13) "Make or Break: How Manufacturers Can Leap from Decline to Revitalization" by Kaj Grichnik and Conrad Winkler.

14) "The Supply Chain Revolution: Innovative Sourcing and Logistics for a Fiercely Competitive World" by Suman Sarkar.

15) "Chasing the Rabbit" by Steven Spear.

Principles textbooks

1) "Matching Supply with Demand: An Introduction to Operations Management" by Gérard Cachon and Christian Terwiesch.

Cachon and Terwiesch have come up with a new book (targeting undergrad/bachelor programme students) in 2017. It is titled: "Operations Management".

2) "Managing Business Process Flows: Principles Of Operations Management" by Ravi Anupindi et al.

3) "Factory Physics" by Wallace Hopp & Mark Spearman.

4) "Building Intuition: Insights from Basic OM Models and Principles" edited by Dilip Chhajed, Timothy J. Lowe.

5) "Operations, Strategy, and Technology: Pursuing the Competitive Edge" by Robert Hayes, Gary Pisano, David Upton, Steven Wheelwright.

6) "Operations Management for Dummies" by Mary Ann Anderson, Edward Anderson, and Geoffrey Parker.

7) "Supply Chain Science" by Wallace Hopp.

8) "Process Theory: The Principles of Operations Management" by Matthias Holweg et al.

9) There are two widely followed textbooks on Supply Chain Management. The one written by Sunil Chopra & Peter Meindl; and the other written by David Simchi-Levi et al.

10) "An Introduction to Operations Management: The Joy of Operations" by Ajay Das.

11) "The Operations Advantage: A Practical Guide to Making Operations Work" by Nigel Slack.

12) "Operations Forensics: Business Performance Analysis Using Operations Measures and Tools" by Richard Lai. This is one-of-a-kind book! The only book that systematically integrates Operations and Finance.

13) "Operations Rules: Delivering Customer Value through Flexible Operations" by David Simchi-Levi.

14) "Operations Management" by Kostas Dervitsiotis (1981). One of the early OM textbooks. A classic!

15) "Modern Production/Operations Management" by Elwood Buffa (1961). First OM textbook that defined the field.

Advanced textbooks

1) "Analysis of Inventory Systems" by George F. Hadley and Thomson M. Whitin. This book is primarily meant for OM doctoral students. This book is also useful to understand and appreciate the art of mathematical modelling in OM.

2) "Researching Operations Management" edited by Christer Karlsson. This book is primarily meant for OM doctoral students.

Good books on Operations Research/Optimization

1) "Convex Optimization" by Stephen Boyd & Lieven Vandenberghe

2) "A first course in optimization theory" by Raghu Sundaram

3) "Optimization: Insights and Applications" by Jan Brinkhuis & Vladimir Tikhomirov

4) "Profiles in Operations Research: Pioneers and Innovators" edited by Arjang Assad, Saul Gass

5) "A long view of research and practice in OR and MS" by ManMohan Sodhi & Christopher Tang

6) "How to Solve It" by George Polya (Classic!)

7) "How to Read and Do Proofs" by Daniel Solow

8) "Economic Theory and Operations Analysis" by William Baumol

9) "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery" by Imre Lakatos (Classic!)