Trends for Operations Management in 2019

Operations management is an integral component within manufacturing that pertains to achieving the highest level of optimized production. This goal is attained through transforming adequate labor and ample materials into a finished product without producing needless waste. Efficiency translates into profit; operations management controls the components who sum of parts equates to efficiency.

Along with various other departments within manufacturing, the roles are continuously evolving - especially operations management - which means that keeping up with the current trends is absolutely necessary for your manufacturing operation. Whether your goal is competition, cost reduction, waste management, or any other factor within production, dialing in on where operations management may be heading can put you ahead of the pack. Therefore, here are the three current trends for operations management in 2019.

Trends for Operations Management in 2019

The three trends for operations management in 2019 include the following:

• Investing in Digital Internal Communications - Business leaders and strategist should prioritize strategies for employee engagement and retention. While this may sound simple, keeping your employees satisfied is a bit more challenging than it may seem. How exactly can business owners encourage employee satisfaction and improve employee experience? You can conduct this through promoting transparency and accessible internal communication. This is one method that will prove effective for specifically recruiting and retaining employees. Facilitating peer-to-peer communication may provide benefits for your workplace such as enhancing workplace morale, improve processes and outcomes, and encourage employee collaboration. Addressing these concerns will make your company much more competitive and caters to frontline employees that may feel as if they are overlooked.  
• Automation of Operational Process - Automation has been a key trend within manufacturing for decades. Automating processes within your operation can save large sums of money and increase efficiency when it pertains to various areas of your operation. Automated chatbots, inline translation functions, and mobile check-in features are only a few of the examples of business functions that are dependent on technology. When you dedicate your machines to specific business tasks, companies are able to free up employee time to focus on products and customers. This is simply because of rather than assigning employees to monitor the website or conduct ritual business tasks, automation and programming can take over that task and allow the employees to work on other components within the operation. Automating your operational process allows you to gain momentum, drive competition, and ultimately take your efficiency up a notch.
• Mobile Communication Tool Implementation - Mobile communication has become increasingly popular among manufacturing facilities today. Even if you are not a technology-oriented industry, implementation of mobile communication tools can aid your manufacturing operation immensely. Mobile communication tools offer a variety of improvements for your operation such as allowing employees to better connect and share information securely, providing a much quicker way to send out business information in real time, and giving mobile accessibility for remote staff to access information, tools, and connectivity needed in order to best perform their job. Once again, implementing mobile communication tools are a necessity for modern-day manufacturing facilities that are seeking to establish thorough visibility into their operation.

Understanding these important trends within operations management enable you to emphasize certain areas of production that will allow you to keep up with or above competition. Understanding the trends of operations management every year is absolutely necessary in maintaining your competitive advantage against other manufacturing operations. A software that keeps up with current trends and aids operation managers is PlanetTogether’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software (APS). APS software allows manufacturers to have thorough visibility of their manufacturing operation through visual representation of their production process. APS software can easily aid manufacturers in areas pertaining to waste reduction, cost reduction, profit increase, and overall supply chain efficiency increase. APS software is a must for manufacturers that are seeking to take their manufacturing operation to the next level and turn their shop floor into a gold mine.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling Software

Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software has become a must for modern-day manufacturing operations due to customer demand for increased product mix and fast delivery combined with downward cost pressures. APS can be quickly integrated with a ERP/MRP software to fill gaps where these system lack planning and scheduling flexibility and accuracy. Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) helps planners save time while providing greater agility in updating ever-changing priorities, production schedules, and inventory plans.

• Create optimized schedules balancing production efficiency and delivery performance
• Maximize output on bottleneck resources to increase revenue
• Synchronize supply with demand to reduce inventories
• Provide company-wide visibility to capacity
• Enable scenario data-driven decision making

Implementation of Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) software will take your manufacturing operations to the next level of production efficiency, taking advantage of the operational data you already have in your ERP.