"Comparison for Tesco and A380 Airbus Operations Management"

Background information

Operations management is about the way organisations produce goods and services. Everything you wear, eat, sit on, read or knock about on the sports field comes to you by the courtesy of operations managers who organised its production (Slack, et al. 2004, p.4).

The aim of this assignment was to contrast and to compare the tasks faced by the 'operations managers' responsible for 'Tesco extra superstore' and a production of the 'A380 Airbus'. This report is designed in five parts; first, is the introduction of what is meant by the operations management and the responsibility of operations manager as obtained through literature review. Second part will have the brief history of A380 Airbus and the discussion about the operations management for the particular product, third part will cover about Tesco (also brief history) and likewise the operations management of the Tesco extra superstore in particular focus on Tesco services, fourth is the comparison (i.e.

Airbus A380

English: Singapore Airbus A380 Français : Un airb...

English: Airbus A380 "revealed", Toulouse January ...

similarities and differences) between the two companies' operations management and last is the conclusion drawn from the analysis.

Introduction

Operations management is decision making involving the design, planning and control of many factors that affect operations (Vonderembse, M. and White, G., 1991, p.4). Operations managers are responsible for producing the supply of goods or services in organisations. Operations managers make decisions regarding the operations functions and the transformation system used. Operations management is the study of decision making in the operations function (Schroeder, R. 1989, p. 4). Also Vonderembse and White (1991:4) ibid, acknowledges that "operations managers apply ideas and knowledge to increase productivity and reduce costs, improve flexibility to meet rapidly changing customer needs, enhance product quality, and improve customer service."

From the above definitions we have learnt that operation managers are responsible for all the activities in an organisation to utilise...