Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-cp4x8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-18T15:48:38.575Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Key Decisions in OM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Danny Samson  and
Prakash J. Singh
By
Willem Selen  and
Danny Samson
Danny Samson
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Prakash J. Singh
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Willem Selen
Affiliation:
Middle East Technical University
Danny Samson
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Get access

Summary

Learning objectives

After reading this chapter you will:

  • become familiar with the key decisions that affect operating systems.

  • understand the factors affecting the decision of organisations to ‘make’ or ‘buy’ parts of their requirements, and how these then relate to decisions to outsource these

  • understand the types and nature of decisions that are involved when making demand forecasts

  • appreciate the factors driving facility location decisions made in order to maximise operating and business effectiveness

  • understand how capacity is planned, built, offered and executed in order to deliver relevant operations and business goals

  • understand the connections between these key decisions, other aspects of the organisation, and the performance impacts of these, in a variety of industries.

Box 3.1: Management challenge: new Woolworths distribution centre

Woolworths has recently invested in a very large distribution centre near Minchinbury in New South Wales, just near Sydney, through which it will receive, distribute and ‘move to store’ over 300,000 cases per day of many of its 20,000 items that it sells in some 700 stores. What happens at this distribution centre? In essence, thousands of pallets of groceries are delivered daily by dozens of large trucks from hundreds of suppliers, which must be stored (for as little time as possible), and sent in the right volumes in a timely manner to the stores that require them, in order to meet the demands of those stores' customers. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Operations Management
An Integrated Approach
 , pp. 64 - 89
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Davis, M. and Heineke, J. 2005. Operations Management-Integrating Manufacturing and Services. 5th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Goldratt, E. M. 1990. The Theory of Constraints. Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: North River Press.Google Scholar
Heizer, J. and Render, B. 2005. Operations Management. 7th edn. Upper-Saddle Rover, N.J.: Pearson-Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Moore, K., Burbach, R. and Heeler, R. 1995. ‘Using neural networks to analyze qualitative data.’ Marketing Research, 7(1): 34–9.Google Scholar
Slack, N., Chambers, S. and Johnston, R. 2004. Operations Management. 4th edn. Harlow: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×