Heizer & Render (2009, p.33) explains an organisations strategy as its “action plan to achieve the mission”. The mission can be defined as “the purpose or rationale for an organisation’s existence” (Heizer & Render, 2009, p.32). The mission of the operations management department of an organisation would be to make production consistent with keeping to the organisations overall mission statement, it is focused on the internal processes to do this so maintaining profits and cutting costs is of utmost importance to continue operations.
Production needs to therefore deliver their goods or service cheaper, better (or different) and more responsive (Heizer & Render, 2009, p.33).
Operations strategies are likely to be more successful when they are integrated with other areas of the organisation’s function, not only limited to accounting and finance but also HR, IT, marketing etc. (Heizer & Render, 2009, p.45)
Integration with accounting / finance is something that should be done to achieve the answers to almost all of the “Ten strategic OM Decisions” (Heizer & Render, 2009, p.37), the decisions I would say would require this are
1) Goods/Service design: As described by Heizer & Render (2009), “design usually determine the lower limits of cost and the upper limits of quality”. Operations must know the financial capabilities of the organisation and the affordability ranges for the level of product they are able to produce. The design must be feasible.
2) Process/Capacity design: Specific levels of production requires specific levels of labour, management, technology, human resources (qualified and/or unqualified) as well as maintenance; these all come at a cost and make up most of the organisations cost structures (Heizer & Render, 2009).
3) Location selection: The size and the area of the desired location for the operations strategy to succeed can vary greatly in cost and affordability must be ascertained. If operations required a large plant in a high cost area this may not be feasible and should be consulted against the financial department. Coming to a decision to change areas or have a smaller plant may be required in this situation.
4) Human resources: People are an integral part of an organisation and, as stated by Heizer & Render (2009), people are expensive. The amount of qualified and unqualified personnel will make up high costs for an organisation and integration with finance/accounting to decide on the affordability of the required personnel as well as salary levels would be required.
5) Supply chain management: To get good terms and maintain trust with suppliers, keeping a good payment schedule and credit terms is highly important.
6) Intentory: This ties in to all of the above, the inventory levels must be monitored and considered based on their costs, accounting can provide good reports on the costs behind the levels of inventories that are kept on hand (storage etc.).
7) Scheduling: With an increase or decrease in schedule time will come additional/decreased costs.
8) Maintenance: Maintenance can be an expensive or lucrative part of a business depending on which side of the table you are sitting on. Product reliability and quality are to be considered with maintenance and both of these factors can and mostly are influenced by costs.
Without integration with accounting/finance I would go far as to say that operations would not be able to function effectively. Finance is what keeps the organisation going and poor operational strategies and decisions without considering finance will cause problems and may even end up in bankruptcy.
References
Heizer, J. & Render, B. (2009) Operations Management. Ninth Edition. Prentice Hall: New Jersey.