Chapter Objectives

• Illustrate how all activities within an organization are actually processes that need to be managed.
• Present the various measures of performance that can be used to evaluate a process.
• Show how process analysis can provide managers with an in-depth understanding of how a process is performing, while at the same time identifying areas for improvement.
• Present the concept of service blueprinting and illustrate how it is used to evaluate processes within a service environment.
• Introduce the concept of business processes and show how they are providing managers with a broader perspective for managing their organizations.
• Present the concepts of benchmarking and reengineering, and show their roles in creating world-class operations.

Supplement Objectives

• Introduce various cost definitions and demonstrate how they are applied in operations management.
• Demonstrate how break-even analysis is used within an operations management context.
• Demonstrate how the concepts of obsolescence, depreciation, and taxes impact the decision-making process within an operations management context.
• Introduce and demonstrate how the time value of money can be used as a financial tool in the decision-making process with respect to various types of operations management issues.
• Demonstrate the use of various financial functions that are available on Excel.