Operations Management for MBAs, 5th Edition

CHAPTER 3

Controlling Processes

CHAPTER IN PERSPECTIVE

As the part of the organization that creates value for the customer, the operations area plays an important role in contributing to the organization's competitiveness. The way the operations will support the organization's overall strategy and competitiveness is defined by its operations strategy, as discussed in Chaper 1. Once the operations strategy has been defined, the actual processes to execute it must be planned and designed (discussed in Chapter 2). Once the organization's processes have been designed, they must be implemented and executed. The effective and efficient execution of processes is complicated by changes that occur both inside and outside the organization. Hence, every process must be monitored and controlled to be sure it continues to achieve its objectives.

This chapter discusses the task of monitoring and control. It includes some discussion of the measures that will be monitored and ways to then exercise control to correct the process. We illustrate the control process with the example of controlling quality through the use of quality control charts. Other topics include such well-popularized subjects as the balanced scorecard, strategy maps, ISO 9000 and ISO 14000, benchmarking, process capability, ...