" This is an excellent text for the "Core" courses of MBA and UG Operations Management. It is well written and can be easily read - and understood - by students; without requiring much (or no) lesson time for explanation. Their "4V" model offers a seemingly simple yet powerful model for evaluating OM situations and "asking the right questions". (It is always fun in the classroom to ask students to compare the "4V" model with the "4P" model of Marketing as well!) It becomes more powerful as cases become more complex and move on to issues that require "compromises" and choices. related to the company's marketing strategy and tactics. It covers all the basic areas of the OM, but is reasonably priced so that students don't feel "cheated" if some areas aren't covered in the deadline. In addition, the availability of previous and / or used editions / copies makes the book very affordable. I have been using this text since its fourth edition and have never found a reason to change. "
" I have read and worked with this book in various publications over the past 20 years or so. I found this to be one of the most useful business textbooks overall, and by far one of the best operations management textbooks out there. "
" A practical and useful book on process and operations management. Industry examples link theory to practice, resulting in a rewarding learning experience! Working on or adding parts to improvements like Lean Operations and Kaizen will improve the reading experience. "
Operations management is important. It is concerned with creating the services and products upon which we all depend. And all organizations produce some mixture of services and products, whether that organization is large or small, manufacturing or service, for profit or not for profit, public or private. Thankfully, most companies have now come to understand the importance of operations. This is because they have realized that effective operations management gives the potential to improve both efficiency and customer service simultaneously. But more than this, operations management is everywhere, it is not confined to the operations function. All managers, whether they are called Operations or Marketing or Human Resources or Finance, or whatever, manage processes and serve customers (internal or external). This makes, at least part of their activities ‘operations’.
Operations management is also exciting. It is at the centre of so many of the changes affecting the business world – changes in customer preference, changes in supply networks brought about by internet-based technologies, changes in what we want to do at work, how we want to work, where we want to work, and so on. There has rarely been a time when operations management was more topical or more at the heart of business and cultural shifts.
Operations management is also challenging. Promoting the creativity which will allow organizations to respond to so many changes is becoming the prime task of operations managers. It is they who must find the solutions to technological and environmental challenges, the pressures to be socially responsible, the increasing globalization of markets and the difficult-to-define areas of knowledge management.
