Strategic Operations Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Strategic Operations Management - Essay Example â€Å"Operational activities are central to the provision of services and /or goods. Every organization provides a product and service combination. A meal in restaurant, a visit to the hospital, buying a pair of Levi 501s, making a pair of Levi 501s, insuring an automobile, staying in an hotel, going to the cinema,; all have operations activities and their management is central to the successful provision of goods and services.† 1 In this example, we are examining the operational activities of a small manufacturing company engaged in the production of automotive components. It is a known fact that small scale manufacturing companies undertake many diverse activities in providing different types of products and services. Modern organizations are complex entities, especially the small scale enterprise, and there will be many different types of operation, both in individual firms as well as across different industries. This clearly reveals that the types of operation vary across different sectors, and there are external factors that influence the organization in many ways. Over the past two decades, leaders of virtually all organizations -- big and small -- have come to understand that external forces can exert more influence over an organization than management itself does. Legislation and public opinion, for example, can greatly expand or restrict what an organization can do and how it does it. As a result, many organizations now try to monitor these external forces, looking for signs where new controversies or new opportunities may be brewing on the business horizon. In today’s competitive and highly sophisticated business world, awareness of those external factors is crucial for a business entity. These factors also determine the sustenance of an organization. Generally speaking, these factors exist both at ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ levels. At a closer micro level, the external elements include suppliers, competitors,

Roles and Governance Models Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Roles and Governance Models - Research Paper Example The roles are disintegrated for each professional and have to execute it diligently to ensure that the project becomes a success. The basic role of a software engineer is to build and develop software according to the specifications that will serve the purpose as documented in paper work. When a project is proposed, it is always in a paper work, it then calls for a software engineer to interpret the information by programming (Dickens, 2006). Through programming language, the software engineer is able to come up with a system that does exactly what is proposed in the paper work. The engineer must be good in data structures and algorithms for this stage of the project to successfully be realized. The software is varied and only conforms to the purpose to which it is planned; a software engineer must therefore be good in programming to produce quality work. A system architect plays more or less the same role as software engineer; he is responsible for the development of the design of the software given that he understands best the customer’s specifications. Software must be designed first before actually it is developed, the analogy here is the plan of the hours, the architect has to draw the plan of the house before engineer can come in, the same principles applies in the development of the software. System analyst is a guru in the development of software and that is why they are able to work out architectural design of very complex systems for the developers to execute the remaining development. In this regard, it explains how close the team operates in the achievement of the purpose (Dickens, 2006). Business analyst is responsible for the dealing with the customers to identify the taste of the customers so that he can provide specification of the software project. Business analyst is responsible for knowing what the customers want so that he is able to provide the same