In all types of companies, operations play a fundamental role in the production process. By general definition, they are the sum of the activities related to each area of the organization and aimed at generating the products or services offered to the market.
In practical terms, it can be said that operations reflect the way of doing things within a company. Therefore, entrepreneurial management is key to the productive activity of any organization. Its aim is to continuously improve production systems in order to guarantee the most efficient and effective solutions.
Operations management includes everything that involves converting raw materials into consumer products or services. This can consider manufacturing system design, facility planning, supply chain management, inventory management, product design, quality control, and much more.
Training: key factor in operations management
In addition to the factors just mentioned, operations management can include worker training, opening a very important door in terms of training and professional growth.
With the penetration of technology, it is possible today to take online courses, which allows a quality leap in education with flexible programs. This is because these types of courses do not require the physical presence of workers in a specific place and provide freedom to adjust their schedules.
Advantage of online operations management courses
Taking courses related to operations management helps workers organize, direct, and manage the processes and systems that enable a company to function.
With the goal of maximizing a company’s efficiency and profits, operations management courses address topics such as business management, office procedures, retail practices, production and supply chains, accounting, or operational support.
The benefits for students are related to the acquisition of greater knowledge and improvement of their leadership skills and better job performance, which can lead to faster career advancement in terms of positions and salaries.
What courses to do?
For those who are interested in taking a course that provides them with more tools in the area of operations management, there are a series of options, within which we select the following:
1. Wharton Online operations management certification
This operations management course is available on Coursera and is offered by the Wharton University of Pennsylvania. It is completely online and thanks to it, more than 70,000 people have improved their career prospects.
The course focuses primarily on analyzing the business process to implement effective strategies that can improve productivity and quality. Generally speaking, students receive knowledge of business planning, operations, and quality management along with quality control through Six Sigma.
Key aspects of the course:
- Analyze commercial processes to define bottlenecks and how to solve them
- Obtain information about business and time flow rates
- Learn to optimize stock levels
- Optimize available commercial resources, including workforce and stock, to get positive results
- Increase quality and productivity through the design of efficient work flows
- Know the origin point of deficiencies and create models with preventive measures to improve the organization’s standards
2. Operations management
Through edX, the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore (IIMB) offers this course which is part of the MicroMasters program.
The course can be taken for free by anyone interested in business operations and contains various operational models, tools, and techniques for supply chain management, quality control systems, and workflow optimization.
The students will learn tools aimed at innovation in business operations to improve productivity and capacity with available resources. In addition, they will develop skills that allow you to configure business processes to channel operations and reduce bottlenecks.
Key aspects of the course:
- Learn the standard business operation configurations to apply innovative improvement techniques
- Analyze operations cycle timing and the system capability to configure the business supply chain
- Start to understand the concept of Lean Management and apply it to the configuration of your business
- Through NVA analysis, identify bottlenecks and defects in the operations system, and implement processes to solve them
- Use graphics controls to monitor the business processes
3. Operations management courses
Also for free, and under the tutelage of the IIMB at edX, this course allows you to learn a knowledge related to critical aspects of operations management.
It provides the opportunity to learn functions to keep the quality of the goods and services produced under control, optimizing the productivity of the available resources and the available capacity to obtain the maximum performance, which is the final objective of any organization.
Key aspects of the course:
- Know the process of operations management and its function in the optimization of business processes
- Understand the operations management tools to verify the productivity and quality control
- Design models to configure business supply chains to canalize process’ flow and time
- Know about Lean Management and apply its concepts to improve business processes
- Improve the professional profile and take the widely available opportunities existing in operations management by getting certified
4. Operations management
Using the LinkedIn Learning platform, it is possible to opt for an extensive list of courses that aim to acquire the necessary knowledge to improve business operations. There are courses designed exclusively to learn about Scrum or Lean Management and how to implement Lean strategies in business operations.
The objective is to achieve excellence in an organization through the development of a system to improve business performance and make the most of available resources.
Key aspects of the course:
* Learn and understand the concepts of business operations management.
* Learn Lean Management tactics and understand the Scrum foundations
* Design work processes and models to improve system performance
* Impulse the company towards excellence through the implementation of operations management tools for optimization
5. Operations courses
Through the Alison platform, free courses are available to advance operations management.
There are options ranging from risk management to safety and supervision in the workplace along with ISO standardization.
Students learn skills to plan, manage, and control the manufacturing process and production, following standard procedures by optimizing resource consumption and production lead time.
Key aspects of the course:
- Redact and implement effective business process flows
- Advance professionally by taking opportunities as an operations management professional
- Understand the concepts of supply chain management and implement risk management strategies
- Know the standard business processes and the ISO standardization in fabrication and production management
Operations management jobs
Operations play a fundamental role in companies, so the large number of vacancies available in this area can be easily associated with professionals who have the necessary tools and experience to fill these positions.
Recent statistical data indicates that in the United States only the full-time jobs available for operations managers exceed 7,000 and there are more than 1,400 for operations analysts. And around the world, the demand is huge and on the rise.
