Operations Management Theory: Reconciling Capacity and Demand Essay

Question 3: Draw on appropriate Operations Management theory, concepts and frameworks to examine how your organization, or an organization with which you are familiar, reconciles capacity and demand. Information technology services industry is a highly competitive cost based operation sector where availability of resources, tangible and intangible is key to successful projects. This makes a significant challenge to accurately reconcile capacity and demand. OpenText is a leader in providing enterprise content management solutions and we will analyse consulting services provided in the European market along with effect on demand with today’s changing economic environment. Slack et al (2009, p.248) defines relationship between capacity and demand as: "Capacity is the output that an operation (or single process) can deliver in a defined unit of time. Demand is the quantity of products and services that customers request from an operation or process at any point in time". Managing capacity is an on-going effort in the industry by reducing cost through repeat business from existing customer and by engaging new potential customers; This while managing customer expectations and ensuring quality of service. Customer engagement and service delivery are key to OpenText’s economic competiveness in the market. Employee development and attracting highly skilled individuals to the organisation are essential in delivering quality service. When considering potential projects, OpenText need to know the resource availability to perform the tasks. This demand for resources is weighted against who is available (capacity) to determine if additional resources are required to meet the demand and if required what types of resources are needed... ...ly uncertainty. IIE Transactions 34 717-728. Slack, N., Chambers, S., Johnston, R., Betts, A.,(2009). Operations and process management: Second edition. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited Roth, A.V. and Velde ,M V D.(1991), â€Å"Operations As Marketing : A Competitive Service Strategy†, Journal of Operations Management ,Vol. 10 ,No. 3,pp 303-328 Chiang, W. K. and Feng, Y. (2007). The value of information sharing in the presence of supply uncertainty and demand volatility. International Journal of Production Research, 45 (6), 1429-1447. Hum,Sin Hoon (2000), â€Å"A Hayes-Wheelwright framework approach for strategic management of thrid party logistics services†,Integrated Manufacturing Systems,Vol .11/2,pp 132-137 Buxey,G.(1993). Production planning and scheduling for seasonal demand. International Journal of Operations and Production Management, 13(7),4-21.