Manager's Guide to Operations Management

Product Design and Process Development: Build It Right and They Will Come

After developing an operations strategy, the operations manager has to decide what to produce and how, where, and when to produce it. These activities include designing the product or service and designing the implementation or execution processes. In this context, a product is anything—goods or services—that can be offered to people who might need or want it. A process, as defined in Chapter 1, is any part of an organization or enterprise that transforms inputs into outputs, with the implicit contention that the output will be of greater value than the input.

Four basic ...