Operations Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 22

Ten Pivotal Operations Management Developments

What’s currently called operations management evolved from a long line of discoveries, inventions, and revolutions. You may find it hard to believe that there was a time when products weren’t mass-produced and available on command. If a person wanted something, she had to make it or persuade someone to make it for her. In this chapter, we highlight ten human developments that shaped operations management into what it is today and credit the people behind these developments.

Logistics

Beginning before the Roman legions, armies have always “marched on their stomachs” and developed increasingly robust methods to quickly move large quantities of food and supplies where needed. Military leaders have studied what we now call logistics ever since — to the point that a common military saying is that, “Amateurs talk strategy. Generals talk logistics.” And from them, this way of systematic thinking about how to move what is needed where spread into the civilian sector, particularly with the buildup of railroads in the 1800’s. Today, UPS, a wildly successful shipping service, whose famously trademarked brown color is based on the color of the Pullman Company’s railroad cars, hangs its marketing hat on its highly refined level of logistics. And one may say that logistics is the foundation of what has become known as supply chain management (covered in Chapter 10).

Today, the Council of Logistics Management defines logistics as ...