Operations_Management

ROLE OF MATERIALS MANAGEMENT The role of materials management is to “direct and control the movement of goods in an efficient manner through the hospital (Langabeer, 2008, p.242).” Within this role is also the function of logistics management. This is commonly referred to as “that part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods, services and related information between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet customers’ requirements (Langabeer, 2008, p.242).” All of this is to say that it requires many individuals and proper coordinating to ensure that materials, supplies, as well as patients are directed and seen to their respective locations within the facility. In order to operate and successfully manage the hospital supply chains, the materials management department needs to have a solid foundation of skills focused on customer service, logistics, finances, human resources, and finally business analysis. However, within many organizations and hospitals this is not the case; the employees do not fully understand their role and significance to the organization due to the lack of proper training and education. ROLE OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT WITHIN MATERIALS MANAGEMENT Operations management is typically referred to as an area of business processes that are focused on the production of goods/services, and requires that the business operations are effective in using resources as well as meeting customer needs/demands. Healthcare Operations Management is a discipline that integrates scientific principles of management to determine the most efficient and optimal methods to support patient care delivery (Langabeer, 2008). There are many roles and goals of health care operations managers that must be reviewed on a daily basis. The primary role of operations management is to convert inputs to outputs. Inputs are defined as the resources and assets of an organization such as labor and capital, including cash, technology, personnel, space, equipment, and information (Langabeer, 2008). Outputs are traditionally referred to as the actual production and delivery of health care services. Operation management personnel will work, on a daily basis, to ensure that the inputs of the organization are creating and delivering quality health care services to their clients (patients). When assessing materials management and relating the primary goals of operations management it becomes clear that it is necessary for the operations management team to ensure that there are enough individuals that are capable of completing the materials management tasks. It is also imperative to ensure that those individuals have the proper working equipment and support from operations management to perform their respective tasks. Within the primary role of operations management there are key functions that will assist in completing their tasks. These functions include: work flow process, physical layouts, capacity design and planning, physical network optimization, staffing levels and productivity management, supply chain and logistics management, and quality planning and process improvement (Langabeer, 2008). These functions and tasks are not easy and operations management personnel will face difficult challenges on an on-going basis in fulfilling the role of their positions. POSSIBLE CONSTRAINTS TO SUPPLY CHAINS The following are some constraints: 1. The problems faced by traditional hospitals include the lack of a standardized process for stock taking of goods such as surgical equipments, drugs, patient support equipments and devices, visual inspection of on-hand quantities and reconciliation of received goods against the bills. 2. Drawbacks for handling, storage and transportation of temperature sensitive products. 3. Downsides in the environmentally responsible side of hospital supply chain such as reverse flow of waste including disposal, recycling and picking up from the point of usage is often neglected. POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF A NEW COLLABORATIVE PLANNING PROCESS A Collaborative planning process is described as an inter-organizational relationship process in which the contributing parties concur to invest resources, jointly achieve goals, disclose information, resources, rewards and responsibilities as well as jointly make decisions and solve problems. The collaboration is established on mutual trust, openness, shared risk and shared rewards that yield a reasonable benefit, consequential in better performance than it would be without the collaboration. It entails cooperation and some form of alliance among two or more organizations. These are created for sharing the costs of large investments, pooling and spreading of risk, and access to complementary resources. In the same way, firms set up close, long-term working relationships with suppliers and customers who depend on one another for much of their business, growing interactive relationships with partners who share information freely, work together when trying to solve conventional problems when designing new products, who jointly plan for the future, and who make their success mutually dependent. JUSTIFY A NEW PLANNING PROCESS Implementing a new collaborative planning process will have many positive outcomes including: maintaining standardized operations, joint planning with the customers and suppliers, sharing knowledge with customers and suppliers, as well as joint investing with the customers and suppliers. Each of theses aspects will better align the operations and materials management departments so that the organization might function more efficiently. SUGGESTIONS FOR KEEPING HOSPITAL SUPPLIED DURING A DISASTER There are three primary components that hospital administrators must consider before a crisis. They include: always ensuring the necessary supplies and equipment for broad and definite threats are either in-house or readily available, where disaster response supplies and equipment should be stored, and the responsibility of group purchasing organizations and public health and safety agencies during the crisis. With the case of a disaster, the supplies needed to provide care will be minimal with an influx of patients. It is imperative that each hospital prepare for varying crises' so that the ensuing chaos can be minimized. Within this realm is the needed ability to identify and store disaster related response supplies and equipment, more than likely in an off-site location or warehouse. This task falls on both operations management and materials management as each department will have a hand in making sure that the hospital is ready for any potential disaster. However, it is important to ensure that those supplies have not expired or have lost their effectiveness to the disaster situation. CONCLUSION Within any hospital it is absolutely imperative that both the operations management and the materials management departments work very closely with one another. This will help to ensure that on both a daily basis and the event of a disaster, the hospital is able to function efficiently and properly. References Langabeer, J.R. (2008). Health care operations management: A quantitative approach to business and logistics. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Inc.