B102.6 - Management Science and Operations |
Management Science and Operations is a favorite topic for engineers and technical business types who love efficiency and bending time. This is where the applied use of statistics, observations, reporting, and now computers come together to evaluate efficiency and implement changes for efficiency, ergonomics and overall system benefits. This is where people learn that what is great in isolation may not be as great when viewed in the context of an entire system or process.
The reference to Operations is a truncation of the term "Operations Research", which will be defined below. The introduction of Information Technology dramatically changed "Management Science and Operations Research" by adding a Technology component.
It is much harder today to speak about Management Science and Operations [Research] without also giving a lot of attention to Information Technology.
It would be easier to group them all together -- something like "Management Science, Operations [Research] and Information Technology" - but non-digital human processes can get lost in the mix, and items related to the Information Technology Technicians can too. Thus, we use all the names and categories in the FAMMMSOIT/bELS acronym , even though they often times intersect and overlap in many ways.
It is less important to identify what belongs in what FAMMMSOIT/bELS bucket than it is to realize there are many, many nuances of the Business Art and Science that come together to create a beautiful business and a beautiful business process.
All engineers are trained to some degree in all of this as part of their natural training without much of the formal labeling. An "Industrial Engineer" is the type of "engineer" who is most closely aligned with the idea of "Management Science and operations research at a core level.
Below is an outline for this page:
The reference to Operations is a truncation of the term "Operations Research", which will be defined below. The introduction of Information Technology dramatically changed "Management Science and Operations Research" by adding a Technology component.
It is much harder today to speak about Management Science and Operations [Research] without also giving a lot of attention to Information Technology.
It would be easier to group them all together -- something like "Management Science, Operations [Research] and Information Technology" - but non-digital human processes can get lost in the mix, and items related to the Information Technology Technicians can too. Thus, we use all the names and categories in the FAMMMSOIT/bELS acronym , even though they often times intersect and overlap in many ways.
It is less important to identify what belongs in what FAMMMSOIT/bELS bucket than it is to realize there are many, many nuances of the Business Art and Science that come together to create a beautiful business and a beautiful business process.
All engineers are trained to some degree in all of this as part of their natural training without much of the formal labeling. An "Industrial Engineer" is the type of "engineer" who is most closely aligned with the idea of "Management Science and operations research at a core level.
Below is an outline for this page:
- Formal Definitions
- Formal Curriculum
- Important Questions for Understanding
- Discussion -- 1-2-3-n
1) Formal Definition
Management Science
Operations Research
- "Management Science (MS), is the broad interdisciplinary study of problem solving and decision making in human organizations, with strong links to economics, business, engineering, and other sciences. It uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions by arriving at optimal or near optimal solutions to complex decision problems. In short, management sciences help businesses to achieve goals using various scientific methods.
The field was initially an outgrowth of applied mathematics, where early challenges were problems relating to the optimization of systems which could be modeled linearly, i.e., determining the optima (maximum value of profit, assembly line performance, crop yield, bandwidth, etc. or minimum of loss, risk, costs, etc.) of some objective function. Today, management science encompasses any organizational activity for which the problem can be structured as a functional system so as to obtain a solution set with identifiable characteristics."
Source: Wikipedia
Operations Research
- "[Management Science ] origins can be traced to operations research, which made its debut during World War II when the Allied forces recruited scientists of various disciplines to assist with military operations. In these early applications, the scientists utilized simple mathematical models to make efficient use of limited technologies and resources. The application of these models within the corporate sector became known as management science.
In 1967 Stafford Beer characterized the field of management science as 'the business use of operations research'
Source: Wikipedia
2) Formal Curriculum
Saylor's has several courses that fall into the Managment Science and Operations Research realm including Operations Management, Business Statistics and Management Information Systems. We've included their Management Information Systems in the IT section of this website, and we've provided curriculum details related the other two below for reference.
Operations Management
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Business Statistics
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3) Questions for understanding
Operations
Decision Support Systems and Executive Information Systems (DSS and EIS)
Statistics
- Do you realize even small changes to products or services can mean large changes are required to maintain proper business alignment?
- Do you know how to setup manual Processes and Procedures for 1, 2, 3 or n employees?
- Do you realize how much processes and procedures might change as employee count increases and decreases?
- Do you know how to use technology to support or replace manual processes and procedures?
- Do you realize too much technology can be as bad or worse as too little?
- Do you realize how much (of your) time, energy and money is being wasted in small drops going unnoticed on an hour by hour or day by day basis?
Decision Support Systems and Executive Information Systems (DSS and EIS)
- Do you know what they are?
- Do you know if you need them?
- Do you know how to create them?
- Do you know how to create them on a small budget?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_support_system
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_information_system
Statistics
- Do you have foundational understanding of Statistics and statistical methods?
- Do you understand that poop in equals poop out?
- Do you realize you don't need all the fancy, formal statistical models to get an idea of how to use data that can help you make decisions?
4) Discussion -- 1-2-3-n
1-2-3-n
We see two common problems when trying to supporting others with education, coaching and consulting for small businesses:
A trick to being a Jack of All Trades or a Man of Many Hats
The art of being a high volume SoloPreneur or a high volume Sole Practitioner is being able to view yourself as a team of "n" and a solo operator at the same time.
- The processes and procedures you need for a 1 person operation vary dramatically from those you need for two more people.
- The processes and procedures you need for a 2 person operation vary dramatically from those you need for 1 person or 3 people.
- The processes and procedures you need for a 3 person operation vary dramatically from those you need for two people or n people (with n being any number greater than 3)
- The processes and procedures you need for an "n" person operation vary from those you need for 3 people BUT by the time you learn how to start laying out stuff for more than 3 people, you've developed the skills to start thinking about scaling up.
We see two common problems when trying to supporting others with education, coaching and consulting for small businesses:
- I've only worked alone -- Those who have only worked alone often have no "systems in place" that are transferable to working in groups of 2 or more, and they don't have the cognitive patterns to easily recognize what needs to change even if they recognize it could be a benefit. It's a mental mess.
- I've never worked alone -- Those who have never worked alone often have no understanding of what can be cut out of normal group processes to maximize efficiency when working alone, and/or they don't realize the inefficiencies built into to processes to accommodate "n" team members. They also have recordings running in their heads about needed to "focus on what you do best" which are often times not remotely in their best interest, but they are very deeply rooted. It can be a mental mess too.
A trick to being a Jack of All Trades or a Man of Many Hats
The art of being a high volume SoloPreneur or a high volume Sole Practitioner is being able to view yourself as a team of "n" and a solo operator at the same time.
- You need to be able to look at how things would work best for a team, and then be able to cut out excess that is not beneficial if you are in fact working solo.
- The nice part about starting with processes for "n" and then going backwards is that if you do ever need to scale up, you know which steps and events you need to add back in.
- This is much easier than the reverse, which is starting with solo processes and then having to try to scale them on demand.
99) The Real World Stuff you need for Operations
The physical (world) and technology portions of this website are generally designed to directly support the majority of the items listed in the formal Curriculum in Operations Management. Some items which aren't listed anywhere else that come in handy when trying to asses processes and systems include:
- clocks in every room for time management tracking
- timers for timing specific tasks and learning about value of time
- the ability to create and use spread sheets for data tracking and analysis