Features Relevant, real world understanding of concepts
· UPDATED! Real-world examples: Operations management is a practical subject and cannot be taught satisfactorily in a purely theoretical manner. Because of this, each chapter starts with a real-life example of how the topic is treated in practice and provides additional examples in relation to specific issues within each chapter.
· UPDATED! Critical commentaries: Not everyone agrees about what is the best approach to the various topics and issues within the subject, so the end of each chapter includes a ‘critical commentary’. These are alternative views to the one being expressed in the main flow of the text.
· NEW! Understand the implications for operations of move towards ‘products’ as subscription services and ‘multiple types of customer’.
· UPDATED! ‘Applying the principles’: Selected problems, short exercises and activities are included at the end of each chapter. These provide an opportunity to test out your understanding of the principles covered in the chapter. Answers to the first two questions are available on the companion website for students. Answers to all the questions are available to bone fide tutors and lecturers.
· NEW! Case studies and boxed examples throughout the text to ensure the content remains relevant and engaging to students
· UPDATED! Case studies: Every chapter includes a case study, relating real or realistic situations that require analysis, decision, or both. The cases have sufficient content to serve as the basis of case sessions in class, but are short enough to serve as illustrations for the less formal reader.
· NEW! Added content:
o A new section on servitization
o More material on ‘emotional mapping’ in customer servicing processes.
o More material on the distinction between front and back-office processes
o More material on the characteristics that position operations on the product-service spectrum
o Coverage of the concept of co-creation of services
Revised structure for better student engagement
· UPDATED! Clear structure based on practical diagnostic logic: The text is structured on a model of operations management that distinguishes between activities that contribute to the direction, design, delivery and development of operations and processes. Every chapter follows a series of questions that forms a ‘diagnostic logic’ for the topic. These are the questions that anyone can ask to reveal the underlying state of their, or any other, operations. The questions provide an aid to diagnosing where and how an operation can be improved.
· UPDATED! Key Operations Principles: Whenever a core idea of operations and process management is described in the text, a brief ‘operations principle’ summary is included in the margin. This helps to distil those essential points of the topic.
· UPDATED! ‘Taking it further': A short annotated list of further reading and useful websites is provided, which takes the topics in the chapter further, or treats some important related issues.
· UPDATED! Summary checklists: Each chapter is summarised in the form of a list of checklist questions. These cover the essential questions that anyone should ask if they wish to understand the way their own or any other operation works. More importantly, they can also act as prompts for operations and process improvement.
· UPDATED! Instructor Resources: Visit www.pearsoned.co.uk/slack to find valuable online resources. A dedicated updated web-based instructor’s manual is available to lecturers adopting this text. It includes teaching notes for all chapters, guided solutions for all case studies in the text, guided solutions for active cases and ideas for teaching them. A set of PowerPoint slides featuring figures and illustrations from the main text is also available. Pearson, the world’s learning company.
New to this edition
o A new section on servitization
o More material on ‘emotional mapping’ in customer servicing processes.
o More material on the distinction between front and back-office processes
o More material on the characteristics that position operations on the product-service spectrum
o Coverage of the concept of co-creation of services ·
- Understand the implications for operations of move towards ‘products’ as subscription services and ‘multiple types of customer’ ·
- Case studies and boxed examples throughout the text to ensure the content remains relevant and engaging to students
