STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

Strategic Advantage in Operations

Strategic Advantage in Operations

Introduction

A company can benefit from the strategic advantage gained from the use of technology in its daily operations. It is not necessary for the technological change to be a major one, because even a small change can have a significant impact. This is contrary for firms not engaging in technological advances. There are technologies like process technology and information technology that add value to the operations management of the organization.

Discussion

Operations management is employing more and more information technology. In general, technology adopted to improve how organizations respond to the five objectives of operations; namely, speed, flexibility, dependability, quality and cost. Technology can be adopted by each and every organization and in almost all aspects of the organization.

Operations systems' performance has been regarded as a major source of competitive advantage for the past two decades. However, no study has been carried out so far to investigate the impact of TQM and technology management on operations performance. Therefore, this study examines the suitability of TQM and technology management as a set of established management principles and practices to fulfill the need of productive operations system.

Technology management practices may influence the operation's performance as the operations strategy should be aligned with technology strategy. A few studies investigated this relationship. Their research has proved that technology and R&D practices are positively related to both product and process innovation significantly. Their study also revealed a significant but poor relationship of technology and R&D management on quality performance.

There are two mechanisms that can reduce the amount of human resources and keep the level of output constant. These two mechanisms are used with the help of technology management. Firstly, the organization should automate its processes. Automation of processes includes deployment of capital resources as a substitute ...