To run a successful business, one must understand every aspect of the business. Understanding, however, is only half the battle. It is essential to be able to use that knowledge to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. That is the idea behind operations management. Operations management involves supervising and improving business operations in the production side of a business. To properly manage the production process, one must be conscious of all the equipment, supplies, and labor involved and recognize the relationships between each step.
Production Systems are the primary focus of operations management. These include both the organization of labor and the physical production of goods. Proper work flow is essential to production. With the small per-piece margins in the product decoration industry being efficient in production saves time, labor costs, and maximizes revenue. Bottlenecks are the enemy of efficiency in work flow. A bottleneck occurs where one step of production slows down the entire process, reducing the capacity of production. Capacity is the maximum output that production is capable of. For instance, in direct-to-garment printing, if you have an employee who is too slow at pre-treating shirts for printing, then the printer will end up waiting for shirts, and everyone is operating below their maximum efficiency. This in turn increases the lead time of production, which is simply the time a production process takes from beginning to end.
Certain constraints can become bottlenecks as well. Constraints can be as simple as the amount of space a business has or the maximum output of a piece of equipment used in production. There will always be a bottleneck of some sort in production, unless you run a perfectly efficient business (which you do not, because no one does). One of the key aspects of operations management is finding ways to mitigate, or ideally eliminate, both bottlenecks and constraints. There are many ways to cut down on bottlenecks and constraints, but they are largely dependent on the specific issue that is holding production back. If production space is the issue, then a larger facility or improved organization may be the answer. If the issue is tied to work flow or the amount of work being done, then the answer may be hiring and/or firing employees or purchasing additional equipment. For instance, if a mug decorator has five mug presses, and each printed mug takes five minutes to cure, then the maximum capacity is 60 mugs per hour. If the decorator needs to be able to print 70 mugs per hour, then he or she simply needs to acquire two more mug presses, and perhaps another employee in order to operate those presses.
In a decorated product shop, the logical flow of work is essential to efficient operations. Raw materials and machines must be organized in a manner that allows employees to operate in the most efficient manner possible. Shops should be organized based on the product decoration processes that are offered. For instance, in a shop that offers embroidery there must a computer near the embroidery machine, as well as storage of blank products and thread. There should also be tablespace nearby so that the embroiderer can prepare products to be sewn. Embroidery machines are loud, and therefore should be kept in a separate room or as far away from office work and customer service as possible so that the noise does not interfere with that work. Each process has similar requirements. So, it is important to fully understand the production processes that you will offer to be able to maximize efficiency through the flow of work.
Another means of maximizing efficiency in production is to implement the latest technology wherever possible. Machines are more efficient than humans when operated properly. Technology can replace labor and save time and money in the process. However, if no one understands how to use a certain technology, or the technology itself is not applicable to your production systems, then it can easily become a bottleneck. For instance, DecoNetwork is an order fulfillment software specifically made for product decoration businesses. If you have an employee fluent in DecoNetwork’s software, then fulfilling orders can be a breeze. If you hand a new employee a computer and expect them to be able to understand the software, then your business will likely come to a halt. DecoNetwork is customized to sell products like t-shirts, mugs, and other decoratable gift products. A restaurant would have no use for DecoNetwork’s software, but a product decorating business could use it to increase efficiency and effectiveness.
Planning is another crucial aspect of the production process. Different decoration processes take very different amounts of time to complete. This means that the production of orders must be planned so that they do not interfere with one another in smaller decoration shops that offer multiple decoration processes. Multiple product decoration processes require heat presses, so ensuring that they are not being performed concurrently is important. Waiting for a heat press is a major waste of time in a small shop. The layout of a shop may be able to mitigate this problem to a certain degree, but it is unlikely to eliminate it. In this case, it is good to have a flexible workforce that can perform others duties to prevent a bottleneck.
There are several ways to evaluate the effectiveness of a production process: Price, Quality, Time, Flexibility, and Stock Availability. The price is composed of all the prices and costs involved in production. Quality is an incredibly important factor. If you have maximized efficiency in production but still turn out a low-quality product, then that efficiency is essentially wasted. The lead time and turnaround time are critical to production. Ensure you know how long production takes, and then how long it takes to deliver the final product to the customer. There are always ways to save time, and that means saving money and happy customers. Flexibility in a production system is pivotal because adaptation is the key to survival. Having a workforce that is capable of performing multiple duties will increase flexibility and can lead to an increase in production. Technology will change, workforce will turnover, customer demand may change, and your business will have to be able to adjust on the fly to keep up. While stock availability largely falls under supply chain management, it is impossible to produce a product if you do not have the necessary supplies. Therefore, stock management must be monitored in order to keep production flowing.
Marketing, Customer Relationship Management, Accounting, and Supply Chain Management are all important facets of a business. However, a product-based business simply cannot last without quality operations management. Operations management is the backbone of any business. If you do not have a quality product, or if it costs too much or takes too much time to create, then the business cannot last. Being able to effectively manage and maximize the efficiency of the production process is the difference between a successful business and a business that is just scraping by.
