Operations Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 4

Operations Management - Essay Example 1. Introduction This report elaborates the operations management process at Green Life, a firm that is into production of vegetables and raising turkeys. This report highlights the significance main critical functions of operations and aims to reinforce the fact that operations management is critical to success of any business. This is accomplished on the basis of three main competitive dimensions, operations effectiveness, customer management and product innovation. The concept integrates 8 Ms of operations management, which are the determinants of business performance. 1.1 About the business Green Life Inc. deals with growing vegetables and raising turkeys. The business peaks during Christmas. These products are sold on retail basis as well as supplied to other shops on wholesale basis. For this, an operations strategy that would integrate appropriate production based on previous sales and demand would help in optimizing the production, which would maximize profits and minimize los s from wastage through wasteful activities as well as wastage of products resulting from storage, delivery or overproduction. Setting up these operations is a highly challenging task and involves a myriad of interdependent activities and issues for the operations manager, all of which need to be addressed at the same time in order to ensure a successful business as well as maximum customer satisfaction. 1.2. Operations management: Operations management comprises of all activities that are required for production of specific goods or services. These activities include planning, designing, and the production process; integration of marketing, finance, human resources and strategy (Brown, 2000). The production/operations processes involve inputs, which include the 8 Ms such as money, material, machines, manpower, management, markets, methods and messages (Nel, 2007). The inputs are processed in someway through series of preplanned activities in order to produce desired outputs, which c an be in the form of completed parts, products, chemicals, service to customers, completed paperwork etc. Operations management also involves provisions and processes for storage of inputs as well as outputs (Shim & Siegel, 1999). An illustration of this transformation process is shown in appendix 1. 2. Competitive elements in OM: Adopting competitive dimensions will reinforce the organization’s value by choosing distinct activities or initiatives that can deliver unique mix of outputs. These outputs may include value for money to the customer, customer service, quality products etc other than the main products. These can be achieved by designing the right strategy that cad deliver operational efficiency and high-quality products. Chase (2006) identifies three major components for strategy namely, operations effectiveness, customer management and product innovation. Operations effectiveness refers to the core business processes needed to run the business. Business processes i nclude all business functions from taking customer orders, handling returns, manufacturing, marketing, delivery of finished products etc. Customer management refers to understanding and maintaining customer relationships by meeting customer demands and expectations. Product innovation refers to development of

How to become a nurse practitioner, what are the prerequisites, how Research Paper

How to become a nurse practitioner, what are the prerequisites, how much money and how long it will take me - Research Paper Example A nurse practitioner is a high level nursing profession so it needs a properly acquired higher education. They can proceed like normal physicians due to the extensive knowledge they have acquired while becoming a nurse practitioner. They give primary care to the patients in hospitals and can diagnose or treat patients as well. The main responsibilities of nurse practitioners are to perform physical tests, prescribe physical therapy, ordering of diagnostic tests and other related errands. The major information which I required about this career is the education needed for being a nurse practitioner. Upon researching about the educational requirements for this career I came to know a lot about the career itself. It is not at all an easy task to become nurse practitioner because plenty of hard work and time is needed to become a good nurse. To become a nurse practitioner a master degree is required but in order to get that, first he or she needs to complete all the prerequisites in orde r to further carry on with the higher education. The prerequisite for master is a bachelors of science in nursing (BSN). The curriculum that BSN follows includes the course of anatomy, physiology, nutrition, microbiology and nursing. BSN completes in four years time just like other degrees. Additionally, the candidate for this program has to be a current license registered nurse. In order to get this license there is a criterion to follow, which varies from state to state. But usually what the candidate requires is the completion of an approved nursing program, passing the exam of National Council Licensure Examination or NCLEX-RN and last but not the least they need to have clinical experience in this field. After completion of degree, the applicants now need to complete Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree from an approved nursing program. The main aim of this degree is to prepare the student for specialty in a specific field and primary care. There are various topics that ar e taught in this program which include pathophysiology, advance nursing practice, ethics and other related courses. A Masters of Science in nursing degree is a minimum requirement for becoming a nurse practitioner. Even though master’s degree is enough in order to get into the profession of nurse practitioner but still most students do opt to get admission in doctoral degree program so that it helps them in increasing their career opportunities and expertise. This doctoral program teaches the students advanced methods of how to take care of the needs of the patients. It also helps them to pursue career in teaching and make difference in the field of teaching as well. The general topics that are taught in this doctoral program are capstone project, leadership, behavior complexity and population health. All these courses are taught to enhance the knowledge of these nurses so that they can use this knowledge to help other people and also to pass on this to their students. Other then the information about the education the next question which is also equally important is that how much time all of this takes. As a bachelors degree in nursing is required for this which is of four years, we can straight away add four years to this time. After this the Masters of Science degree in nursing is required which takes almost two to three years. Now, by simply adding up