Careers in Operations Management

Operations Management is the heart of any company. It involves the essential steps of producing goods, quality control, quality management, managing the supply chain, facilities management, product formulation and design, ordering of goods, warehousing of goods, contacting vendors, purchasing of external products. There are millions of good jobs available in operations management and these positions offer substantial upward promotion potential.

You would normally start in a line associate position reporting up through a supply chain department or a plant manager. You would have specific responsibilities such as monitoring warehouse inventory levels, vendor management or shift supervisor. In time you could rise to be a plant manager or a VP level person overseeing a broad range of operational tasks in a company. Ultimately, an operations manager has the opportunity to rise to become the Chief Operating Officer.

A related discipline is operations research. This area involves the use of quantitative tools such as dynamic programming to solve corporate problems such as how to schedule arrivals of airplanes at a hub.

An undergraduate degree in operations management would be strong preparation for this field. Not all entry level positions require this degree. An MBA or Masters in operations management is also very good preparation. The masters degree will allow you to start at a higher level in the management chain.

These positions require excellent people skills, the ability to master processes and mechanical matters and intelligence. It is important to be familiar with information technology, quantitative analysis, people management and problem solving.

We invite you to learn more about operations management - one of the most rapidly growing career areas in the economy. Feel free to review the materials below as you explore your opportunity in operations management.