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Operations And Project Management Essay

Operations and Project Management 1

The World Economic Forum defines productivity as “the amount of output per worker” (Jahchan, 2016). Productivity is not, however, the same thing as efficiency—which is a mix-up of terms that some companies frequently make (Mankins, 2017). Efficiency, as Mankins points out, is about doing more with less, whereas productivity is simply about taking the inputs and getting the desired outputs. Productivity is measured by “comparing the amount of goods and services produced with the inputs used in production” and is about “doing more with the same”—i.e., taking what you have and making it work well. Productivity is not about cutting costs by cutting inputs: it is about maximizing the juice that can be squeezed from those inputs.

This distinction matters because some companies will think that if they only cut costs—i.e., inputs that do not seem to have any significant impact on production output—they can be more efficient. Instead of maximizing the potential that they have with all of their inputs, they undercut their own potential in an effort to succeed by being pennywise. One example of how a company can make sure it is actually being productive is a restaurant: it can look at all its employees—staff, managers, waiters, etc.—its venue, its menu, its drink list,...

and determine based on comparison with the inputs whether the restaurant is actually being productive.
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Technology has a major impact on companies’ operations in the global environment today. Technology has impacted transportation, communication, and security with digitization removing time and space barriers and tracking allowing monitoring and security operations to be more effective. But most of all, technology has improved communications and has enabled distance work environments to be utilized so that companies can hire workers from halfway around the world and set them to work without ever requiring the worker to relocate. The Internet has made so much possible simply in terms of accessing and sharing digital information so that companies are truly global today since the Digital Era has eliminated the traditional notion of borders. This all has the impact of making the operations more competitive and efficient. An example of this can be seen in the way companies can outsource the IT departments to teams on the other side of the planet.

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In personal event planning, which is a service I provide, the six constraints that impact project…

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References

Chambers, J., Mullick, S. & Smith, D. (1971). How to choose the right forecasting technique. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1971/07/how-to-choose-the-right-forecasting-technique

Jahchan, P. (2016). What is productivity, and how do you measure it? Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/what-is-productivity-and-how-do-you-measure-it/

Levitt, T. (1965). Exploit the product life cycle. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1965/11/exploit-the-product-life-cycle

Mankins, M. (2017). Great companies obsess over productivity, not efficiency. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/03/great-companies-obsess-over-productivity-not-efficiency


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