example assignment operation management

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Course info, instructors.

• Prof. Charles H. Fine
• Prof. Tauhid Zaman

Departments

• Sloan School of Management

As Taught In

• Mathematics
• Social Science

Introduction to Operations Management

Assignments, “quick” case analyses.

The purpose of these assignments is to support your thinking about primarily qualitative issues raised in the course. These three write-ups ( choose three from CVS, Toyota, Zara/M&S, Amazon, European Recycling, Hank Kolb, Katrina, Break.com, Barilla ) should provide a point of view as to what some protagonist in the case should do given the situation faced. These write-ups should be in the form of a one-page memo (single spaced, max font of 12) and contain your opinions, based on reasoned analysis addressing issues raised by the preparation questions (see the Case Preparation Questions section). Please DO NOT answer these questions directly. Rather, use these questions to help guide your thinking as to what issues may be relevant in the case. Quantitative or numerical analyses ARE NOT EXPECTED in these quick case analyses, although they are not discouraged either. In preparing for these assignments, please adhere to the following guidelines:

• Work as an individual on these assignments. This is a firm constraint, no exceptions.
• Written assignments are to be turned in at the beginning of class on the due date assigned.
• Case analysis assignments are limited in length to a single-page, single-spaced memo using a text font no smaller than 12.
• Each one-page memo may be accompanied by up to two pages of supporting exhibits, provided they are clear and self-explanatory. No fonts smaller than 12.

“Deep” Case Analyses

These two write-ups ( choose two from PATA, HP-DeskJet, and Sport Obermeyer ) should contain your answers to the specific preparation questions for the corresponding cases (see the Case Preparation Questions section). In preparing for these assignments, please adhere to the following guidelines:

• Work in teams of at most 3 students. This is a firm constraint, no exceptions.
• Case analysis assignments must be less than 4 pages in length (excluding appendices) and use text fonts no smaller than 12.
• Every graph or table/spreadsheet showing the results of computations must be accompanied by both a clear description of what all numbers shown represent qualitatively, and a detailed explanation of how they are computed, including a statement of all the relevant mathematical formulas or algorithms. Please do not submit a table copied from a spreadsheet assuming that the instructors will try to figure out by themselves how the numbers it shows are calculated—they won’t.

There will be two short homework assignments that will aim to test your grasp of some of the quantitative material taught in the course:

• The assignments should be done individually and submitted at the beginning of class on the day they are due.
• Homework assignments should be 1 page of text font no smaller than 12.

The Goal Book Report

Each student in the class should individually prepare and turn in a report of at most 3 pages containing answers to the following questions (in Q&A form, not essay form):

• What are the methods described in The Goal for identifying a bottleneck?
• After bottlenecks have been identified, what are the concrete factory floor-level actions described in the book for improving overall system performance?
• Relate the notions of statistical fluctuations and dependent events mentioned in the book to concepts covered during the course. Also explain and relate to course concepts the statement made by Jonah that a factory “balanced with demand” will soon experience bankruptcy.
• Several times in the book, lot sizes are reduced in order to decrease cycle time. What are the limits to this strategy?
• When designing an operational process from scratch, which process step(s) should be the bottleneck(s)?
• What are the high-level management messages in this book that you consider to be of value?
• Leaving writing style and other delivery issues aside (e.g., romance novel format), what substantial critiques of this book would you make pertaining to its function as a “textbook” on the management of business operations?

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Operations Management: Definition, Examples, Benefits, and More

Ethan Miller

May 3, 2024

13 min read.

Excellent operations management makes a difference you can both see and feel. It's the reason some businesses run like clockwork.

Sure, you may understand the basics of running a business, but how do you take your operations to the next level? In this article, we uncover the secrets to exceptional operations management and offer examples and tips to help you refine your approach.

What is operations management?

Struggling with late deliveries, stockouts, or unhappy customers? Operations management is your solution. It’s the process of planning, organizing, directing, and overseeing business activities to deliver the best possible products and services to customers.

Essentially, operations management is what gets a product from an idea to your doorstep.

What does operations management cover?

Think of everything it takes to get your product or service into a customer's hands. Without effective planning, you’re likely to waste time, effort, and money.

That's where operations management comes in. With a strong operations foundation, you ensure:

On-time deliveries: Operations management streamlines production schedules to meet customer deadlines.

Optimized resources: Efficient supply chain and inventory management means you always have what you need without unnecessary waste.

Consistent quality: Good and reliable quality control processes guarantee your products or services always meet customer expectations.

Seamless workflow: Operations management maximizes efficiency across departments.

Increased productivity: Get more done with the same resources through process improvements.

What doesn’t operations management cover?

While operations management takes on many important tasks, it doesn’t include responsibilities outside the production and delivery of goods or services, such as:

Strategic direction: Setting the company's big-picture goals isn't part of operations management.

External analysis: Operations management doesn't focus on external factors like market trends, the economy, or competitors.

Non-operational investments: Financial decisions unrelated to daily activities aren't handled by operations management.

Brand and marketing: Brand image and marketing fall outside the scope of operations management.

Compliance and governance: Operations management doesn’t involve setting company-wide rules or legal policies

Get started with Lark’s Operations Plan template

10 operations management examples

Operations management takes different forms across industries. Whether it's a healthcare or manufacturing organization or a local restaurant, successful businesses rely on well-designed operational processes.

Here’s what operations management means for 10 different business sectors:

1. Healthcare

In healthcare, miscommunication and delays can jeopardize patient care and drive up costs. Operations management ensures the right care is delivered at the right time, all while optimizing resources. This means coordinating patient care seamlessly, keeping wait times down, and managing costs effectively.

Doctors, nurses, and medical staff need to be able to share information quickly and accurately to provide the best possible patient care. Many hospitals have turned to technology to improve communication, reduce wait times, and keep costs down.

Take WhiteCoat , a leading telehealth provider. They used Lark's video conferencing platform, which offers AI translation, to help their Singapore and Vietnam divisions communicate more effectively. Lark Drive also became a central hub for their regional employees to collaborate and share important documents and knowledge, leading to more efficient and higher-quality care.

2. Manufacturing

Production delays, quality issues, and supply chain problems can lead to lost revenue and unfulfilled customers. Operations management oversees and controls production to ensure everything runs smoothly and all products reach your customers perfectly.

It includes making sure assembly lines work, spotting and addressing production bottlenecks, and performing frequent quality checks. Another key job is managing supply chain logistics to keep production on track. The correct inventory level is critical. A delicate balance needs to be struck between having all the raw materials arrive at the factory at the right time and not having excessive unused inventory that costs money to store or leads to waste.

A successful manufacturing operation guarantees on-time deliveries, satisfied customers, and a more profitable bottom line.

3. Restaurant

The chaotic yet captivating hit series “The Bear” is a great example of the contrast between the hectic behind-the-scenes world of restaurant operations and the polished dining experience those same restaurants give their customers.

There are so many aspects that go into restaurant management , including daily food preparation, managing food inventory, safety protocols, maintaining cleanliness, and optimizing kitchen workflow.

Operations management streamlines your kitchen workflow, ensures consistent food quality, and helps you optimize staffing for peak periods.

Mama Lou’s , a family-run Italian-Filipino restaurant, knows this well. By using Lark Base to centralize their daily sales reports and create a more organized workflow, they were able to not only improve customer satisfaction but also create a more positive work environment for their employees.

Learn how Lark can help your food and beverage businesses. Contact us now .

In the fast-paced IT industry, downtime and slow response times lead to lost productivity and frustrated clients. Since customers rely on your IT services to keep everything from websites to customer databases up and running, operations management brings reliable support and proactive problem-solving.

This means having the right technicians available to troubleshoot, monitoring IT systems for potential problems, and gathering client feedback to improve your service.

When unplanned outages or issues occur, IT operations management has procedures in place to quickly restore service and minimize downtime.

From global retail giants to local boutique shops, retail operations management keeps everything in check. But mismanaged inventory, inefficient staffing, and poor customer service can really hurt your business.

With effective operations management, you can better manage in-store operations, such as staffing, visual merchandising, and providing excellent customer service — all while driving sales.

Workforce scheduling is a major consideration in retail operations management. You need to make sure the right number of people are working to help customers during the busiest times and stay cost-effective when things are slower.

Use Lark’s employee schedule template to simplify workforce scheduling.

Additionally, analyzing sales data gives you a better idea of how to staff employees, what to stock, and where to concentrate your marketing efforts.

Image Source

Milan-based designer furniture brand REAL Home & Fashion used Lark to streamline their retail management and procurement processes. With Lark Anycross, they could see all past purchases in one place. As a result, their procurement team was able to better allocate resources and budgets to optimize their procurement process.

Explore Lark's retail solutions today.

6. Financial services

Banks, investment firms, and insurance providers are all institutions that we put our trust in. Even a small operational error or security breach can cause devastating damage to both your reputation and finances.

Think of the number of financial transactions that happen every second — there’s a lot that needs to be managed effectively and securely.

The three primary goals in the financial sector are to 1) protect customer information and funds, 2) optimize operations for efficiency, and 3) keep clients satisfied with quality service.

Operations management in the finance industry carries immense responsibility, as it involves creating secure processes and streamlining transactions. It also ensures your business is up-to-date on the latest regulatory compliance guidelines to protect both you and your customers.

7. E-commerce

E-commerce has made it easier than ever to find what we need to buy online. But, to run a successful e-commerce operation, you need to face the challenges of juggling orders, inventory, and deliveries across multiple online platforms.

Inefficient processes can cause delays in deliveries and unhappy consumer experiences. Operations management streamlines your e-commerce workflow, helping you process orders quickly, maintain accurate inventory, and ensure on-time deliveries.

Heptaco , a digital innovation company that builds e-commerce systems, understands the importance of efficient operations. By switching to Lark’s all-in-one platform, they were able to consolidate all key business communication and collaboration tools. This streamlined their operations, helping them to better collaborate with and support their customers and even save on costs.

8. Construction

Construction projects face tight deadlines, unexpected delays, and strict compliance regulations. Unforeseen costs and scheduling conflicts can seriously derail a project. Operations management keeps your construction projects on track with careful planning, efficient resource use, and regular quality checks.

You’ll need to consider your budget, scheduling, and compliance with local building codes. This means creating a realistic timeline, outlining the necessary expenses, and staying updated on legal requirements.

Operations management makes sure these standards are upheld throughout the construction process, helping ensure that each project is completed on time and within budget.

9. Transportation

Rarely do we think about the operations that make our commute to work or deliveries possible. A successful transportation business needs a good operations strategy to deal with delays, routing inefficiencies, and vehicle breakdowns.

Operations management coordinates logistics for timely deliveries, plans vehicle routes, and sets up maintenance schedules to minimize delays, wasted fuel, and sudden breakdowns.

When Seryu Cargo , a logistics company specializing in e-commerce, needed a solution to improve efficiency and collaboration among their team, they turned to Lark. Lark's collaboration tools and mobile-friendly platform helped them automate routine administrative tasks and allowed drivers to update their main office on the go. This led to a more efficient deployment of resources and, as a result, improved operations as a whole.

10. Agriculture

The unpredictability of agricultural operations, like managing water, land, and livestock in variable weather conditions, is a unique challenge.

Effective operations management keeps your business running smoothly so that you can provide the food and resources customers need. It helps you optimize resources and make informed decisions. This leads to higher crop yields and a stronger business overall.

Many agriculture businesses are also focusing more on sustainability in farming. Agriculture operations management also helps reduce environmental impact.

Streamline your operations workflow with Lark Base

What is the role of an operations manager?

Operations managers are the backbone of a business. They are in charge of the following:

Inventory management

An operations manager needs to manage stock so that the business can meet customer demands without overstocking or running out of inventory.

To do so, they usually use systems to track inventory levels, predict future needs, and organize restocking efforts.

Personnel management

Staffing and training are key parts of an operations manager's job. Hiring the right people and providing them with top-notch training helps you build a collaborative team that can do their jobs well and handle unexpected situations with ease.

Another aspect of the job is to help maintain a positive work environment. While operations managers aren't human resources professionals, they can do their part to address staff issues quickly and fairly.

Delivery planning

Operations managers carefully plan delivery routes and schedule timely deliveries to customers.

If sudden delivery issues arise, such as delays, wrong orders, or damaged goods, they need to jump in and address the problems to help prevent them from happening again. Their role here is to help ensure a smooth customer experience and build customer trust.

Process optimization

Think of operations managers as expert mechanics — constantly fine-tuning the engine of a business, even when it's already running well. They conduct regular reviews of current workflows to identify potential bottlenecks and optimize processes for more efficiency and cost savings.

Generally, this means testing and adopting new methods or technologies to enhance daily operations and performance. Adopting this approach keeps businesses competitive and agile.

Optimize your processes and workflows with Lark

4 operations management best practices

Figuring out the nitty-gritty of operations and workflows can get tricky and even overwhelming. We've compiled four best practices to help make it easier:

1. Automate routine business processes

There are so many tasks and processes involved in running a business. But the good news is you don’t have to do everything yourself.

As many as 89% of business owners and managers report that their businesses have grown due to process automation, and 92% say that automation has freed up their employees to take on more strategy-focused jobs.

Automation technologies like robotic process automation and artificial intelligence (AI) can help make your operations more efficient. They can also reduce the number of mistakes made and make sure tasks are done in the most optimal way possible.

It’s estimated that AI will boost employee productivity by approximately 40% by 2035. But with so many tools, choosing the right ones is essential. Analyze your current processes and identify which are best suited for automation. AI can significantly improve efficiency and accuracy for repetitive, rules-based tasks, such as data entry and invoice processing.

Use Lark’s cost-savings calculator to find out how much you can save by automating your processes.

2. Adopt a consumer-centric approach

Your connection with a customer shouldn't end after you deliver a product or service. Gather and review customer feedback to find areas for improvement and new ways to customize products based on customer preferences.

For example, if a customer has a negative experience due to a delayed shipment, look at your delivery processes to see where you can strengthen them.

Take a page out of Amazon's playbook by making your operations consumer-centric. Align your operations strategy with customer needs to ensure they get the experience and value they expect from your products or services.

3. Prioritize continuous improvement

How do you know how well your business is performing? Start by setting key performance indicators (KPIs) to track operational performance and identify areas for improvement. A good tip is to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) KPIs.

Additionally, motivate employees to suggest improvements based on their experience. Since employees are typically the ones in the field, their insights can be valuable.

You can use Lark’s Survey Template to customize a feedback mechanism for employees and let them easily share their ideas.

4. Build a strong line of communication across departments

We all know how important communication is in the workplace. In fact, 26% of leaders believe that poor cross-team collaboration is the biggest challenge in business management.

To build a smooth-running operation, you need high-functioning and collaborative teams. But how do you do that across departments? By prioritizing clear and consistent communication.

Hosting regular inter-departmental meetings and using collaborative platforms can help your different teams share information, problem-solve, and align their objectives. It’s equally important to encourage a culture of transparency and teamwork to bridge operational silos.

The challenges of collaboration multiply with teams spread across different time zones. Tools designed for global teams make all the difference. Choose platforms with features like video chatting, real-time translation, and clear task management to ensure seamless collaboration no matter where you are.

Master cross-departmental communication with Lark

Lark Suite improves operations management for all businesses

Operations management can be complicated, time-consuming, and expensive. Lark has you covered with helpful tools to automate your processes, boost efficiency, and reduce operational costs .

Looking for a quick approval process or a streamlined task tracker? Done. Lark's no-code automation means you can create custom workflows and SOPs within minutes. With Lark Flow, tasks move forward automatically, saving you time and effort.

You can also customize permissions for cross-departmental teams so that everyone can access the relevant information they need while also protecting sensitive data.

Additionally, take advantage of Lark’s template library , which includes a customer service management & tracking base template and an order and inventory management template , among many others.

Lark Meetings

Powered by AI tech, Lark Meetings allows you to connect from anywhere and collaborate on documents in-call. You can share feedback and make edits instantly, keeping your team up to date.

Plus, Lark Minutes automatically transcribes video meetings into transcripts that you can view, search, and collaborate on. No more taking notes — now, you can fully focus on your discussions.

The best part? Lark’s video chat supports subtitles that can be translated in real time. This is especially helpful for global teams since everyone can express themselves in their native language.

If you're curious about just how powerful Lark’s video translator is, give it a try here .

Lark Approval

Do you wish you had an easier way to approve processes? Well, Lark Approval acts as a central approvals hub. You can submit and process all types of approvals with one click. Plus, you can customize your approval processes to perfectly suit your business needs.

Try out our versatile Approval Matrix Whiteboard template to create your own approval workflow.

Lark OKR helps you go beyond simply setting goals by giving you the tools you need to achieve them. You can easily organize your teams around strategic objectives to stay aligned.

On each team member’s Lark profile, you’ll find OKRs to help with cross-departmental alignment and personal accountability.

And when it’s time to update your OKRs, you can simply insert them into Lark Docs so your team can update them collectively and then sync them back to the OKR system.

Moreover, determine your team’s “state of health.” Through data analysis, you can monitor team progress in real time, identify potential problems early on, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy.

Lark’s Team Weekly Report (OKR) template can help you track your team's weekly progress and align with organizational objectives.

Manage OKRs and KPIs on Lark

Manage your business operations with Lark’s all-in-one platform

Give your operations a productivity and efficiency boost. Try Lark for free today!

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Unique Submission

• Posted on December 28, 2020
• Unique Submission Team

MBA7061: Operations Management

Introduction

Operations management is extremely crucial to any organization (Anderson et al. 2013). In production of goods and services, overseeing, designing and controlling the process of production and redesigning, business operations management plays a pivotal role. Especially in services sector, important factors within operations management are adequately trained workers, location to be well equipped as per service requirement and should be safe for customer/public, service to be regularly revised as per customer input and competitive forces.

Operations management benefits service sector companies, as effective operation management leads to customer satisfaction, and satisfied customer is beneficial for the company. One such organization successfully using operations management to its benefit is Domino’s.

Headquartered in Michigan, United States and established in 1960, Domino’s has an earned a revenue of US $2.47 billion in 2016. Under current CEO J. Patrick Doyle, company mainly sells pizza, pasta, submarine sandwiches, chicken wings, deserts etc.

Q1. Discuss the concepts of operations input resources, transformation processes and outputs. Use the company business process to illustrate your explanation.

1.1 Transformation Model

Operations produce goods and services by the process of transformation(Brown et al. 2013). Operations acts as processes taking in grouped input resources and then using them to transform something or else transformed themselves to output of products and services. The transformation process is very structured and streamlines which begins from order placement and ends at delivery to the end customer. Operations is the process of changing the state of a thing to produce output which is used by the customers. Transformation model is used to explain the nature of operations (Pycraft 2002), and has three stages of production of goods and services named as input, process and output.

The three stages of the transformation model for domino’s are as follows

1.1.1 Input

The operation input can be easily classified as transformed resources and transforming resources. The transformed resources are the raw materials, information and customers etc. the transforming resources are the trained staff, machinery etc. The transformed resources include the resources in raw state which are further processed as value added products and this is hence done with the help of transforming resources(Production et al. 1990).

Applying to domino’s, the input stage includes transformed resource and transforming resources. Transformed resources include ingredients such as refined flour, vegetables, meat, spices herbs, cheese etc., secret cooking recipe, and orders placed by customers. Dominos operations ensures that transformed resources add value to the entire transformation process. Ingredients of highest quality are sourced, secret recipe creates uniform tastes of its products worldwide and same dough, sauce etc. is used, customer order can be customised as per customer taste thus offering customization. Transforming resources include physical stores, employees, machinery. Dominos uses specialised ovens creating quality pizzas. Staff training is regularly conducted and good staff is rewarded. Stores have the same layout.

1.1.2 Process

Process is the most vital stage of transformation model, involving conversion of raw resources of low value into value added processed product or service(Shanker 2002). This transformation is done through a process which combines transforming and transformed resources, finally producing a good or a service to be accessed by the customer. Thus, Dominos has its dedicated process converting raw ingredients into consumable value added food products within 15 minutes. Thus, it utilises transformed and transforming resources to convert it into output.

1.1.3 Output

Output is the final stage of the transformation model where the product or service is ready to be used or availed by the customer. In this stage, a value is added to the product or service(Mahadevan 2009). In case of domino’s, the output is its product which the customer has ordered for. Domino’s receives monetary returns for the product it delivers to the customer, which helps the organization earn profit. Domino’s being a global brand has to take care of the quality and taste of the product and service they deliver to the customer. Domino’s provides free and on-time delivery to its customers worldwide.

Transformation model used by Dominos is very well defined and successful for the organization, making it earn huge profits.

Q2. Consider the importance of the four Vs, volume, variety, variation in demand and visibility. How do they affect organization’s operation?

2.0 Importance of four V’s

There are four types of V’s namely volume, variety, variation in demand and visibility. The four V’s have a great importance in an organization.

It is the quantity in which the product is made. Different companies have different volumes of output(Lewis and Slack 2003). For instance, high volume companies will have different implications than that of low volume companies. Domino’s being a medium high-volume company has relatively low unit cost of its products. The repeatability of making the product is high which makes the organization specialized in the product. High volume production is capital intensive in nature. Whereas any restaurant being a low volume producer will have high unit cost. Domino’s being relatively cheaper and a specialized one gains an advantage over the other restaurant.

2.2 Variety

Variety can be defined as the options to choose from. Higher the variety, customers have options to choose from, which gives them a joy of having different items(Wild 2003). In case of domino’s the customers have their own choice of selecting their toppings or can add more ingredients that makes it flexible. Domino’s moreover makes new operational strategies based on consumer feedback. Therefore, domino’s has medium high variety to choose from. Whereas small scale eating joints have low variety of items in their menu which gives them a disadvantage as compared to Domino’s.

Typology of Operations and Process (4 V’s) for Domino’s

2.3 Variation in Demand

Inconsistency in demand is also known as variation in demand. When variation in demand is low, there is stability in the business and when there is high variation then the volume of output fluctuates creating instability(Bennett et al. 1988). Domino’s, having stable and predictable demand has minimum changing capacity of output. Domino’s has high utilization of resources which keeps cost per unit lower. Whereas, a hotel with a high variation in demand in accordance to season will be instable as it would require to hire more staff when the hotel is full to its capacity. The hotel should flexible in accordance to variation in demand. Changing capacity of output will result to high unit cost. So, domino’s has an edge over hotels and restaurant having high variation in demand.

2.4 Visibility

Visibility is the exposure of the operation to the customer. Customer can perceive satisfaction from high visibility of operation(Brown et al. 2013). When visibility of operation is high, customer has short waiting tolerance and when visibility is low there is a time lag between production and consumption of product. Applying to domino’s, the visibility is medium low when customer enjoys his food at domino’s. Quite contrary to this visibility is low when the food is delivered at home. Domino’s having relatively low visibility has high staff utilization and centralization.

These four aspects should be handled properly to achieve process excellence. It is well known that four Vs when aligned and tuned properly ensures value creation for the organization(Jones and Robinson 2012). Domino’s has been able to manage the four V’s efficiently and therefore gaining a good brand value and profit for itself.

Q3. Explain how the understanding of four Vs will lead to the five operations objectives, quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost?

3.0 Five Operation Objectives

The performance objectives to be fulfilled in an operation are quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost. All five-performance objective, when achieved by a company adds on to its brand value.

3.1 Quality

Quality is probably the most performance important objective to be fulfilled by any company in today’s modern business environment(Greasley 2008). Quality can be defined as giving error free goods and services which satisfies the customer. Good quality product always conforms to its specification(Pycraft 2002). Applying on domino’s, the quality of the product is good enough and satisfies customer. The quality of domino’s is same throughout the world. The quality of the product may not be excellent as it is a fast food restaurant. Quality is nicely taken care by the trained staff as they apply adequate precaution such as wearing gloves and cap while cooking. The ingredients used by domino’s is fresh and of good quality.

Speed is also an important performance objective in today’s fast moving life. Speed as performance objective refers to doing operation fast to reduce the gap between order and the availability of product and service(Schroeder 06). Domino’s also has a good speed of production so the waiting time for customers is low. Domino’s speed affects internally and externally both. Internal effect of speed leads to cost reduction. External effect of the speed gives customer speed advantage.

3.3 Dependability

Dependability is defined as providing customer with its goods and services on time. This makes the organization reliable and trust is build up within the customer. Being on time is simply being dependable(Poonia 2010). Applying on domino’s, time taken to give away the order to customer is very less because of the high speed. In restaurant industry time is considered very important, if you are late in providing customer with food. It creates irritation in the mind of customer. Therefore, domino’s using less time to deliver product to the customer is dependable.

3.4 Flexibility

Flexibility means making changes in the operation according to customer. Flexibility nowadays has become a necessity as most customer want changes or slight modification in what they order(Shim and Siegel 1999). Domino’s offer customer the flexibility of choosing toppings for their pizza. Domino’s is quite flexible in case of its delivery. It gives an option of cash on delivery. Domino’s has always been customer friendly and gives customer options of size to choose from. Flexibility is so high that the customer can even choose their base for pizza.

Cost is one of the major operation objective. Cost is the biggest level at which all companies compete. Low price attracts customers globally(Arora 2004). Low price products are only possible if the cost of production is low. All the above factors internally effect in reduction of cost. The production in domino’s is done on a large scale which reduces the cost per unit. Therefore, Domino’s has a low-price menu which attracts the customer.

Q4. Identify and critically evaluate in the light of the literature studied the competitive factors such as order winning, qualifiers and less important factors of the company?

4.1 ORDER WINNERS

Order winners are dimensions of performance that make a distinction between the products and services of any two companies(Peters 2013). Order winner are the benefits like quality, delivery speed, reliability, products, design, flexibility and image that helps customer of a company to choose company’s service and product.These competitive factors act as order qualifier for some firm and order winner for the other firm. This depends on the company’s work profile(Elnadi 2009) . For instance, a buyer of industrial chemical would prefer quality over all the other factors. On applying on dominos, speed and dependability are the order winners. Dominos being a fast food restaurant is low on cost. Cost is also one of the order winner for dominos. Dominos has a good market reputation which helps it to grow as a brand. Dependability, speed, cost and image being the competitive advantages for dominos gives it an edge over its rivals. Low cost with a good image is one of the major attraction for the customers. Whereas in fine dining restaurant, quality is the order winner as cost is relatively high and the customers expects a good quality of food in return.

4.2 ORDER QUALIFIER

Order qualifiers are the competitive benefits that a company must exhibit in order to be a successful competitor in the business field (Bellgran and Säfsten 2010) . For instance, the quality of domino’s pizza is an order qualifier, not an order winner. It may look strange but the main product is only an order qualifier, not an order winner but the reality is that the pizza is only half of the core offering. The pizza delivered by dominos is not only a world class pizza but also good enough that the customers cannot refuse to relish it. Domino’s pizza may be one of a kind in understanding that their pizza that their pizza is only a qualifier, not an order winner. For many companies, it is easy to engage themselves in the product and not balance the product with the service.   Dominos is also one of those companies that gives more stress on good service. Flexibility of the product is also an order qualifier as customer have only the choice of toppings, as dominos being a centralized organization does not allow complete customization of their product as per customers want. Whereas in fine dining restaurant, speed and cost are the order qualifiers as to make good quality food the cost will be high. Cooking good quality food is a time taking procedure.

So, when a fine dining restaurant is compared with dominos the order winners and qualifiers are different. The two restaurants serve different purpose of eating, for instance dominos food is a replacement of snacks whereas a fine dining restaurant serves a complete dinner.

Q5. Evaluate the strategies that the company employ to maximise the benefits and minimise the problems associated with them?

5.1 General strategies applied by companies

The strategies are the plan, which are designed by the companies for achieving long term objectives as well as to attain competitive advanced over the competitors. The companies to operate its business in the dynamic business environment implement various strategies for making the business successful and profitable. The companies to increase its sales revenue follow the strategies such as enhancing the productivity of the staff members by organising training programs, finding new customers and improving customer services.

In addition, the company attracts more customers by effectively designing the retail displays, expanding into new market and offering price discount to the customers for making them loyal towards the specific brand. On the other hand, companies by selecting the right location for opening new retail outlet. The central location is selected by the companies for grasping the attention of the customers such as near the shopping mall. At the same time, well maintenance of restaurants such as good ambience helps the companies to satisfy the needs of the customers in an appropriate manner. Additionally, the companies by focusing on the quality of the products are able to sustain in the market for a longer period of time.

5.2 Strategies applied by Domino’s

Domino’s operations policy stresses mainly on providing high quality services to the customers.

• Minimize operation cost – To minimize the operationcost by improvement of effectiveness and process at the store.
• Production oriented store design – To utilize the production oriented store design in order to smooth the way of efficient production and fast service to the customer.
• Efficient order taking, production and delivery – To carry of an effective operational process that consist of order taking, pizza preparation, cooking, boxing and delivering.
• Statistic store location to carry off the delivery service – To invest in the strategic location of the store in order to facilitate fast service to the customer and maximize the revenue.
• Product and process innovation – To stimulate an innovative culture that increases both quality and effectiveness.
• To use domino’s PULSE point of sale system. Use of domino’s PULSE system to improve operative effectiveness, provide corporate management with easy ingression financial and marketing data and to minimize time consumption and expenses.
• A comprehensive store operations evaluation program – To utilize an all-inclusive store audit program to ensure that stores are meeting both as the expectations of the customers.
• A focussed menu – To maintain a focussed menu that is made to present an eye-catching quality offering to customers while reducing order errors and accelerating order taking and food preparation process.

6.0 Conclusion

From the above discussion, it can be summarized that the business process involving activities of input, transforming and output plays an essential role for the companies to provide effective product and services to the customers. The 4 V’s such as volume, variety, variation in demand and visibility affects the managerial operations of Dominos in a significant manner. In addition, the 4 V’s will help the company to achieve the performance objectives, which are associated with cost, speed, quality, dependability and flexibility. The competitive factors such as order winning, order qualifiers etc facilitate the companies to gain competitive edge over the competitors in a particular geographical area. Moreover, the strategies such as selecting right location, well maintenance of retail outlets, high quality of services assists Domino’s to maximize the benefits and minimize the problems associated with them.

TQM: Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore (MPA)

Table of Contents

Introduction. 3

Q1. Discuss the concepts of operations input resources, transformation processes and outputs. Use the company business process to illustrate your explanation. 3

1.1 Transformation Model 3

1.1.1 Input. 4

1.1.2 Process. 5

1.1.3 Output. 5

Q2. Consider the importance of the four Vs, volume, variety, variation in demand and visibility. How do they affect organization’s operation?. 6

2.0 Importance of four V’s. 6

2.1 Volume. 6

2.2 Variety. 7

2.3 Variation in Demand. 8

2.4 Visibility. 9

Q3. Explain how the understanding of four Vs will lead to the five operations objectives, quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost?. 9

3.0 Five Operation Objectives. 9

3.1 Quality. 10

3.2 Speed. 10

3.3 Dependability. 10

3.4 Flexibility. 11

3.5 Cost. 11

Q4. Identify and critically evaluate in the light of the literature studied the competitive factors such as order winning, qualifiers and less important factors of the company?. 12

4.1 ORDER WINNERS. 12

4.2 ORDER QUALIFIER. 12

Q5. Evaluate the strategies that the company employ to maximise the benefits and minimise the problems associated with them?. 13

5.1 General strategies applied by companies. 13

5.2 Strategies applied by Domino’s. 14

6.0 Conclusion. 15

Introduction. 19

Q1. Based on the relevant literature, critically review the critical success factors (CSFs) for TQM implementation and comment on the similarities/differences between the CSFs of TQM and the building blocks of the BE process of the company chosen. 19

CSFs for TQM Implementation. 19

Similarities and differences between CSFs and Building Blocks. 23

Q2. Identify a company which has achieved the SQC or SQA level in either a manufacturing or service industry. Critically asses the strategies and the tools and techniques that they use to achieve the SQC or SQA level. Comment on the effectiveness of applying the CSFs of TQM to achieve SQC or SQA. The company information could be obtained from company management briefing, interviews and/or company visit. 25

Tools and techniques used for achieving the SQC or SQA level 25

Effectiveness of applying the CSFs of TQM to achieve SQC or SQA.. 31

References. 33

It is important for the firms to maintain the quality of their products and services to achieve competitive advantage in the market. For this, they need to comply with total quality management that ensures the quality of their operations, processes, and products. TQM is the approach that shows the continuous improvement of the management and employees to meet the customer needs and organizational objectives (Zakuan, et al., 2012). The quality assurance enables the firms to develop trust among the stakeholders mainly with customers that lead to the accomplishment of the business objectives and high performance.

Concerning, this report provides the detailed account on the relevant literature reflecting the critical success factors (CSFs) for TQM execution. It also discusses the similarities and differences between the CSFs of TQM and the building blocks of the Business Excellence process of the chosen company namely Maritime & Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), who won the “Singapore Quality Class” award for its entire processing & servicing operations. Also, this report also explains the strategies and tools and techniques used by MPA to achieve the SQC or SQA level.

Q1. Based on the relevant literature, critically review the critical success factors (CSFs) for TQM implementation and comment on the similarities/differences between the CSFs of TQM and the building blocks of the BE process of the company chosen.

CSFs for TQM Implementation

According to Valmohammadi (2011), CSFs are the areas that ensure the desired results for any process as things must go right for the individual or business. About TQM, there is no universal CSF as different researchers and scholars used different CSFs for execution of TQM approach within the organizations. In the views of different researchers and scholars (Khanna, et al., 2011, Zairi&Alsughayir, 2011 and Rezazadeh, et al., 2012), top management commitment is the most important CSF in implementing the TQM within the business. It is because top management commitment sets a vision for future to enhance the quality and creates an organizational climate that helps to empower the employees to execute the quality management approaches. However, the study conducted by Das, et al., (2011) reveals that training is a significant CSF in the successful TQM implementation. If a company wants to deliver quality products and services, then it needs to provide good training to the employees to enhance their skills and knowledge regarding quality education and techniques. In support of this, Zairi&Alsughayir, (2011) also affirmed that training should be provided continuously to develop the understanding of the workforce about the quality management system and their responsibilities.

On the other hand, from the research of Hietschold, et al., (2014), it can be determined that it is crucial for the firms to focus on customers’ needs and expectations to successfully implement the TQM. The adoption of a customer-focused approach enables the organization to achieve the ultimate goal of TQM i.e. customer satisfaction. Apart from this, the research conducted by Zakuan, et al., (2012) identified that employee involvement is crucial to make the TQM implementation successful. Without employee involvement, it is impossible for the firms to utilize their skills and abilities and achieve their full commitment to the quality improvement.

Regarding this, Desai, et al., (2012) also depicted that it is important for the companies to make the employees feel like a part of the organization and encourage them to participate in quality management. However, it is recognized from the investigation of TQM guiding framework by Brun (2011) that supplier management is an important aspect for implementing TQM successfully. It is essential for the firms to select high-quality suppliers who could meet the demand of required materials and purchased parts to avoid quality problems. A good relationship with the suppliers helps to get the quality supplies leading to effective quality production.

All have emphasized the importance of strategic quality planning for the execution of TQM in their studies (Khanna, et al., 2011 and Valmohammadi, 2011). This planning is crucial to formulate vision and quality policy and use the quality control tools and techniques to ensure the quality of products and services. Meanwhile, Ooi, et al., (2011) placed emphasis on product and service design as an element of successful TQM implementation. It is because effective design in product development helps to enhance the customer satisfaction that is the outcome of TQM. Zakuan, et al., (2012) found out that quality culture is linked to the TQM within the organizations. Many researchers and scholars also believe that organizational culture shows the people’s belief in executing the TQM as it is important for the firms to create a culture that could be effective for the employees to engage in the quality improvement fully. Also, Zairi&Alsughayir, (2011) focused on the significance of result oriented approach to achieve the goals of TQM. It is because the firms need to emphasize the results of adding value to the products and services to enhance the quality perspective.

On the flip side, Irfan &Kee (2013) addressed TQM critical factors as employee empowerment and teamwork . It is because employee empowerment is significant to allow the employees to make decisions related to quality improvement and teamwork helps to coordinate the efforts of different employees across different departments to maintain the quality standards. Supporting to this, Brun (2011) revealed that HR management practices like teamwork, employee empowerment, leadership management, supportive culture, employee motivation and engagement, training and development, etc. are effective for the firms to execute the TQM approaches successfully.

Additionally, Hietschold, et al., (2014) revealed that process management is an important part of the total quality strategy. It is effective for the organization to manage the processes so that they operate as expected to ensure the better quality of products.

Therefore, it can be interpreted from the literature review that different researchers have provided different views on the CSFs required for TQM implementation. Overall, it can be stated that different CSFs like top management commitment, training, employee empowerment, employee engagement, process management, customer focus, supportive culture, strategic quality planning, etc. are required for successful implementation of the TQM approach.

Similarities and differences between CSFs and Building Blocks

The Business Excellence framework provides a set of different management standards that are used for business excellence. This framework consists of seven building blocks of excellence such as leadership, planning/strategy, information/knowledge, people, processes, customers, and results. Leadership is required for getting strategic direction and influencing the attitude towards excellence. After this, customers are also building the block that reflects the customer centric approach of the company to develop excellence.

(Source: Spring Singapore, 2017)

Strategy or planning is the important building block that is based on stakeholders’ interests and guides the development of people and process efficiency to obtain the set goals of the firm. Information or knowledge plays a crucial part in learning and innovation to make effective decisions and drive improvements.

On the basis of the above discussion on CSFs for TQM and building blocks, it can be stated that there are similarities and differences in both approaches. Building blocks are the base of the concepts of TQM implementation. There is the commonality between CSFs for TQM implementation and building blocks because both are interrelated to each other. For instance, leadership building block is related to CSFs like top management commitment, leadership, and supportive organizational culture.

There is a relationship between CSF namely strategic quality planning and product design and building block named as planning or strategy. Building block i.e. people are associated to different CSFs like employee empowerment and employee engagement and teamwork. About the customer perspective, CSF and building block are similar to each other. Information or knowledge can be gained by conducting training programs. However, building block namely results is related CSF of result oriented approach. The relationship between CSF and building block can be represented as below table:

Besides from these similarities, there are some differences between building blocks and CSFs of TQM. The CSFs reflect what the firm must accomplish to achieve the mission, whereas the building blocks are the minimum key factors or sub-goals that are required by the organization to achieve the goals.

Q2. Identify a company which has achieved the SQC or SQA level in either a manufacturing or service industry. Critically asses the strategies and the tools and techniques that they use to achieve the SQC or SQA level. Comment on the effectiveness of applying the CSFs of TQM to achieve SQC or SQA. The company information could be obtained from company management briefing, interviews and/or company visit.

Tools and techniques used for achieving the SQC or SQA level

As MPA is leading and largest Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and this company regulate different services by managing the port and marine facilities and activities. In context to it, there is a large customer base of the MPA in the economy especially in Singapore and many other countries. But on the other hand, MPA Singapore uses different tools and techniques which help the company to manage its business activities and develop its customer base in a best efficient manner, i.e., by offering best products and services (Spring Singapore, 2017). While studying, it is observed that government of Singapore is more conscious about the public health and environment because of which different types of rules and regulations are developed to protect customer interest and help in organizations to develop their business to a large extent.

For developing the quality of service, MPA tried to take the support of building blocks like leadership, planning, employee and customer satisfaction and much more. In the organization, Singapore Quality Award plays the vital role as this award defines the actual quality result of the product and services offered to customers. Similarly, MPA Singapore (2016) stated that Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) involves in corporate social responsibility which helps in satisfying the customers in Singapore. The below table shows the BE assessment, administered by SPRING for MPA that is based on a

1,000 point-scale:

The above score (>800) shows greater heights of excellence and sustained global leadership of MPA. All these areas are evaluated for scaling performance of MPA as follows:

Leadership:

The leadership level of building block help in achieving the corporate social responsibility efficiently like doing charity or donation for handicapped kids school (Kids in play and Lighthouse School). Through, this contribution to the society help in demonstrating that maritime community takes part in reaching out to those people or children who are in need (Rezazadeh, 2017). From the survey, it is determined that MPA’s every year organize a charity program regarding raising the fund or for welfare program for visually handicapped children. This leadership effort of MPA is appreciable as it provides full effort by active volunteerism for community welfare. While doing corporate social responsibility, the firm used to face issues like high cost, lack of employee engagement and time and for which, leadership quality is required in best efficient and effective manner.

Customer Satisfaction:

MPA Company also focuses towards providing customer satisfaction because of which it was able to achieve Singapore Quality Award (SQA).  MPA’s focuses on providing the excellent services to its customers by following proper excellence framework. For the organization, customer satisfaction is the major important factor that encourages the organization to perform or serve well to customers as the excellence services are always valued, recognized and rewarded (Nourani, et al., 2017). The tool which is used by MPA for achieving customer satisfaction is the service excellence framework which involves three different types of customer management tenets. The leadership team of MPAs always tries to follow the strategies which are developed in the form of policies, values or principles. On the other side, for providing the quality of service to customers, the organization uses customer driven services which help in judging the quality of service offered. Through customer driven services, it becomes easy for the company to manage the customer relationship as well as help in focusing towards the current and future customer and their requirements (Spring Singapore, 2017). Thus, increase in customer satisfaction level will lead Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore to achieve a Singapore Quality Award (SQA) and Singapore Quality Class (SQC) certificates.

Düren (2017) defined that strategy also plays the essential role in engaging the organization towards ensuring involvement of employee towards strategy development as well as help in establishing both long-term and short-term strategies and goals. So, MPA also actively focuses towards building collaborative committee or group that represents the maritime community (MPA, 2016)

In context to it, MPA decided to sign an MOU with IBM Company for protecting the data regarding security and also for port operational use. For achieving an SQA and SQC certificate, MPA developed a corporate and strategic planning cycle which helped the company to achieve organization goals and help in the implementation of strategic planning to different division areas of the company (MPA Singapore, 2016). The tool supported or used by MPA to develop effective strategic planning through organizational and personal learning that will help the company to increase company’s performance as well as help employees to participate and develop their learning.

People are the essential level of building block that assists the company to manage the benchmarking, increase employee performance, employee learning & engagement and satisfaction level. In concern to this level, MPA also develops Human Resource Planning in which they develop the future ready framework so that company gets ensure bout the right organization, right employee, right engagement and so on. The HR team and leadership team of MPA try to manage and work closely with management team to support them in taking right decisions (Gimenez-Espin, et al., 2013). MPA developed new HR Strategy Map in support of future ready journey in respect of improving the employee engagement, labor environment, talent management, managing HR processes, competency development. On the basis of the survey, it is determined that MPA adopts top-down and bottom-up approach with the help of which it becomes easy for the company to identify the need of learning in staff members or employees. Through this, MPA increased its chances or have potential employee engagement which leads to winning a Singapore Quality Award (SQA).

Information and knowledge management:

Information and knowledge management is another building block o business excellence which supports the organization in collecting the information and data related to organization outcomes & directions. This level is effective enough for MPA also as it guides in strategic development that leads to decision making for improvement and learning process (MPA, 2016). In concern to it, MPA developed an effective information architecture that helps in collecting and managing the information. For analyzing the collected data, MPA follows a knowledge management lifecycle in which data is created then it is stored and sorted, and then data is analyzed to check the reliability of the data or information (Goetsch and Davis, 2014). Similarly, MPA also developed strong security infrastructures which host various corporate systems as this security system help employees to easy access to authorized information from different various information system. Thus, this security and information management system are effective of MPA which help company to achieve Singapore Quality Award (SQA).

Processes include innovation capabilities and process management and supplier and partner management to achieve high-quality performance. Regarding this, MPA follows a framework focusing on envision reflecting innovation among its people, enable showing availability of tools and resources to nurture innovative ideas and engage reflecting the creation of the environment facilitating creativity and innovation. MPA engages its stakeholders through different vehicles industry initiatives, competition, funds, and schemes offering incentives, joint R&D partnerships and calls for proposals. It has taken several process improvement initiatives like Safe, Efficient & Sustainable Global Hub Port, Strong Maritime Singapore Identity, Quality Maritime Workforce, Maritime Knowledge & Innovation Hub and culture of excellence to enhance the improvement in its processes (MPA, 2016). The MPA Crisis Management Group (CMG) helps to manage the processes in the crisis. MPA also works with the suppliers such as regulated partners and capability development partners to improve capability and efficiency to achieve the quality standards.

The building block namely results can be measured in different levels including customer results, financial results, people results, and operational results. To achieve better customer results, it may be required for the firms to improve targets and meet trends based on customer satisfaction and retention and product performance and comparison with competitors and benchmarks.

According to the Pro-Enterprise Ranking (PER) Survey by Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) annually, MPA was ranked top among 26 government agencies since 2001due to its service excellence efforts. Concerning to the area of customer results, MPA is developing new e-solutions for the customers to enhance the productivity of the industry and improve the customer satisfaction level. As per the Marine survey, it is determined that more then 90% customers are satisfied with the e-services of MPA. Also, the number of marine incidents has declined steadily over the years showing the improvement in products and services of the company. It has instilled a safety-first culture at sea that is required for enhancing the service quality and customer satisfaction.

On the other hand, financial & market results are related to improvement in trends and targets met for financial performance indicators and marketplace indicators and comparison with the competitors. MPA has achieved financial performance by meeting budget marketmanship targets ranging from 95% to 105%in the last 3 years. Also, rewards like Best Seaport Asia award, Singapore Sustainability Awards 2015, Environmental Achievement Awards (SEAA) 2015, Singapore APEX CSR Awards 2015, etc. show its market performance.

At the same time, people results are oriented towards improvement trends and targets met for employee engagement, employee learning, employee wellbeing and satisfaction and comparison with the competitors and benchmarks(MPA, 2016). Regarding this, the company has improved in staff engagement and staff participation and invested substantially in staff development through training.

Also, operational results are based on improvement trends and targets met for business and processes, suppliers and partners, community and environmental protection, governance system and comparison with competitors and benchmarks.  In concern of this, MPA has focused on R&D and safety and security and infrastructure projects and donated to the charity for community development and invested in the Maritime Singapore Green Initiative (MSGI) to protect the environment (MPA, 2016).

Effectiveness of applying the CSFs of TQM to achieve SQC or SQA

The application of CSFs of TQM is significant in achieving the SQC or SQA awards. It is because these awards are based on the quality achievements and CSFs are important to achieve the quality objectives to win these awards. The CSFs of TQM implementation like top management commitment, training, employee empowerment, customer focus, etc. are quite important for the firm to get the business excellence awards. It is also determined that there is matching between the CSFs of TQM implementation and building blocks of business excellence (Nourani, et al., 2017). Therefore, the relationship between both aspects also shows that these factors are effective for the firm to achieve these awards.

The CSFs are used to execute different approaches and strategies related to quality management to ensure the quality of goods and services. For example, MPA focuses on the customer satisfaction approaches to ensure the ultimate goals of the TQM that is also required for achieve the SQA.  At the same time, the SQA shows the business excellence in Singapore reinforcing the image of the quality. This award is based on the maintenance of quality aspects in each and every perspective of the business(Gimenez-Espin, et al., 2013). Therefore, it was crucial for MPA to focus on the CSFs of quality implementation that enabled it to achieve the business excellence awards.  The consideration of CSFs by the firm brings excellence in the operations and processes of the firm.

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What Is Operations Management?

Understanding operations management.

• Operations and Supply Chain Management

What Operations Managers Do

The bottom line.

• Business Essentials

Operations Management: Understanding and Using It

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Operations management (OM) is the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization. It is concerned with converting materials and labor into goods and services as efficiently as possible to maximize the profit of an organization.

Operations management teams attempt to balance costs with revenue to achieve the highest net operating profit possible.

Key Takeaways

• Operations management (OM) is the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization.
• Operations management is concerned with converting materials and labor into goods and services as efficiently as possible.
• Corporate operations management professionals try to balance costs with revenue to maximize net operating profit.

Katie Kerpel / Investopedia

Operations management involves utilizing resources from staff, materials, equipment, and technology. Operations managers acquire, develop, and deliver goods to clients based on client needs and the company’s abilities.

Operations management handles various strategic issues, including determining the size of manufacturing plants and project management methods and implementing the structure of information technology networks. Other operational issues include the management of inventory levels, including work-in-process levels and raw materials acquisition, quality control , materials handling, and maintenance policies.

Operations management entails studying the use of raw materials and ensuring that minimal waste occurs. Operations managers use numerous formulas, such as the economic order quantity formula, to determine when and how large an inventory order to process and how much inventory to hold on hand.

The combination of understanding and coordinating the work of a company is central to becoming a successful operations manager.

Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM)

A critical function of operations management relates to the management of inventory through the supply chain . This process is known as operations and supply chain management (OSCM).

To be an effective operations management professional, one must be able to understand the processes that are essential to what a company does and get them to flow and work together seamlessly. The coordination involved in setting up business processes in an efficient way requires a solid understanding of logistics .

An operations management professional understands local and global trends, customer demand, and available resources for production. Operations management approaches the acquisition of materials and the use of labor in a timely, cost-effective manner to deliver customer expectations. Inventory levels are monitored to ensure that excessive quantities are on hand. Operations management is responsible for finding vendors that supply the appropriate goods at reasonable prices and have the ability to deliver the product when needed.

Another large facet of operations management involves the delivery of goods to customers. This includes ensuring that products are delivered within the agreed time commitment. Operations management also typically follows up with customers to ensure that the products meet quality and functionality needs. Finally, operations management takes the feedback received and distributes the relevant information to each department to use in process improvement.

Operations managers are involved in coordinating and developing new processes while reevaluating current structures. Organization and productivity are two key drivers of being an operations manager, and the work often requires versatility and innovation. As part of their daily responsibilities, operations managers must possess a variety of skill sets, including:

• Technical expertise in areas such as production automation, data entry, budget tracking, and design.
• Organizational ability and attention to detail, including keeping track of project files, employee reports, budgets, schedules, and other details related to company processes.
• Motivational prowess in the form of strong leadership skills that provide the expertise to motivate others, inspire ideas, and foster a supportive and diverse team.
• Analytical aptitude , including skill in risk analysis and mitigation when initiating new projects. Operations managers must also analyze processes to identify challenges and offer solutions if negative situations develop.
• Decision-making proficiency , especially under stress, when there is very little time to assess all factors.
• Ability to maintain quality standards , including as they relate to raw materials, machinery, manufacturing procedures, packaging, delivery processes, and the finished product.

A master of business administration (MBA) degree in operations management can provide global perspective on industry trends and an awareness of financial regulations and political uncertainties that can affect an organization. It also provides a solid grasp of the inherent complexities and the tools needed to respond well to change.

What Is the Purpose of Operations Management?

Operations management (OM) is concerned with controlling the production process and business operations in the most efficient manner possible. OM professionals attempt to balance operating costs with revenue to maximize net operating profit.

What Are Some Systems of Operations Management?

Modern operations management revolves around four theories:

• Business process redesign (BPR) , which is focused on analyzing and designing  workflow  and business processes within a company. The goal of BPR is to help companies dramatically restructure the organization by designing the business process from the ground up.
• Reconfigurable manufacturing systems , designed to incorporate accelerated change in structure, hardware, and software components. This allows systems to adjust rapidly to the capacity to which they can continue production and how efficiently they function in response to market or intrinsic system changes.
• Six Sigma , an approach that focuses on quality. The word “six” references the control limits, which are placed at six  standard deviations  from the normal distribution mean. Tools used within the Six Sigma process include trending charts, potential defect calculations, and other ratios.
• Lean manufacturing , which is the systematic elimination of waste within the manufacturing process. This theory sees resource use for any reason other than value creation for customers as wasteful and seeks to eliminate wasteful resource expenditures as much as possible.

What Is an Example of Operations Management?

Operations management is prevalent and most easily understood in the healthcare sector. The current healthcare system overuses expensive, technological, and emergency-based treatment. High costs from care often remain uncompensated due to uninsured patients. The prevalence of services in expensive settings creates a burden on taxpayers, health insurance holders, and healthcare institutions.

In simple terms, operations management (OM) is the process of prioritizing and employing business practices designed to achieve maximum efficiency as a means to achieve maximum profitability. Within the process, operations managers utilize organization and productivity to achieve their primary goals.

Balancing the efficient use of resources, including staff, materials, equipment, and technology, is key to a successful OM process and, by extension, the success of the company.

University at Buffalo, School of Management. “ Operations and Supply Chain Management .”

Indeed. “ 15 Essential Operational Management Skills .”

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Operations management assignment sample, introduction:.

In the today’s world of immense competition, firms need to develop competitive advantage which will enable them in long run sustainability of the organization. It is important to mention that development of competitive advantage can be done in various way right from development of new innovative product or reorientation of the existing process which essentially reduce cost and also at the same time helps in delivering right value to the customers (Greasley,2008). Therefore organizations conducting business in the highly competitive business environment must transform its process or product as per the requirement so as to fulfill the needs and demands of the customers. Thus it can be essentially inferred that operations management which deals with the entire management of the operations of the company right from the procurement of raw materials, transforming it into final products and delivering it to the targeted customer must be done in an orderly so as to maintain the efficiency in the system (Slack, Chambers & Johnston, 2010).

Al-Futtaim group is one of the oldest Dubai based organization who are specialized in retailing, real estate, electronics and finance. The company was established in 1930s and today it is the 3rd largest business conglomerate in the entire region of United Arab Emirates. As of the latest available figure the company have a net worth of $ 3.6 billion and has 30000 employees for managing the entire operation of the business in different functionalities. It is due the complexity of managing the huge operation of the business, the firm should have an efficient operational plan so as to manage the business. This research study on the operations management issue will be done on the retailing arm of business.

The Importance of Operations management in Al-Futtaim:

Al-Futtaim as one of the biggest retailer in UAE and therefore it must have a proper operation management system in place which will help to maintain a smooth and efficient functioning of the business. Being a retail organization in the free economy like Dubai, the company has to continuously curve out strategies which will enable them to maintain a competitive position for the long run sustainability of the organization. In essence operations management have an important role to play in the retail based organization like Al-Futtiam. The company have to efficiently maintain the stocks which are generally of huge variety. The complex operation of the retailer includes real time coordination with the various types of supplier and maintaining the entire logistics so that the needs of the customer can be fulfilled. Moreover the organization has to maintain the cost of inventory and the other cost related for lead time of order processing. So in essence the importance of operations management for the efficient management of the inventory and reducing the lead time for timely aggregation of stock in the store is of huge importance for the providing the customers with the required products. Moreover the demand estimation must be done so as to reduce the wastage and thus reduce the blockage of capital and the inventory cost associated with the procurement of the product.

It is also absolutely to note that the inventory of the product must be managed in an efficient way specifically for perishable products or products with low shelve life. The main importance of the operations management in the retail organizations is also with the entire logistics of the products. The logistics of the products are to done in such a way that the quality of the products must be maintained right from procurement to final delivery of the products are maintained.

The role of operations management is also not limited to the inventory control, procure and delivery of products in the retail organization such as Al-Futtaim. The operation management department have to maintain the store in an orderly manner such that the products can be categorized for the ease of the customers. Moreover the accountability of the each of the large volume of the product must be maintained so as to reduce the pilferage in the entire process of the supply chain process of the organization.

The operation department of the retail organization like Al-Futtaim is also entitled to give exclusive service to the customers so that that needs and the requirement of the customers at the ground level of the can be fulfilled. So it is of absolute necessity for the operation department of the company to provide the required training to the employees with close consultation with the human resource department so that the employees can give an exclusive customer satisfaction through providing of quick solution for their needs. This will not only help the organization to gain customer loyalty but also to gain a competitive advantage to its competitors.

The importance of Operations management in retail organization is of utmost importance and helps in gaining of competitive advantage. The reasons for such importance of the operations management for retail companies like Al-Futtaim are summarized below:

• The efficient functioning of the operation department help in predicting demand thus reducing loss on unnecessary capital blockage for the organization.
• It helps to procurement of kind of product at right quantity ad right quality which helps in providing delivering value to the customers.
• Operations management in retail organization helps in maintaining proper inventory which is highly essential for conducting the daily operation of the retail business.
• It oversees the entire logistics of the company and ensures timely procurement of product in the store and also efficient delivery of products.
• The operations management also deals with providing time bound customer service and thus ensuring customer satisfaction which help in long run sustainability of the organization (Slack, Chambers & Johnston, 2010).

The Process of Operations Management in Al-Futtaim:

The management of the Al-Futtaim has an integrated ERP system through which they management the entire operation of the retail arm of the company. The analytics department of the company through an in-depth analysis estimates the demand forecasting of the various types of product and then with the help of statistical modelling predicts the quantity of demand for each category of products. It is with the help of the demand estimate, the operations department of the company process the orders for the products with the required quantity. It is also essential to mention that before the processing of the orders, the operation manager of the company checks the inventory levels of the company through the integrated ERP for each category of products. The resource planning software is made in such a way that, it provides a signal for low inventory and thus enables the operation department to maintain the optimum level of inventories.

Moreover linear programming model based logistics system are performed in the Al-Futtaim. This model based logistics system help the company to reduce the cost of transportation of products and timely procurement of product in the store, thus providing the availability of wide range of products for the customers at all the time at different store location of the company (Fernie & Sparks, 2009).

The Transformational Process Model of Al-Futtaim:

Al-Futtaim being a retail organization with multiple store location and are dependent on large number of suppliers for the procurement process, the transformational process of the company starts from procurement and ends till in the final delivery of the products to the customers. Being a service sector firm, the input stage of the transformation process of the company starts with the order processing of the required product. The entire management of the daily operational affair of the company is done with the start of the demand estimation and the required logistic facility for the transportation of the products and the inventory management of the process. These processes which constitutes the planning and control for the above stated functions is basically the transformational process of the Al-Futtaim of the Transformational Process Model of the operations management of the company with respect to the operations management. Finally the selling of the products at the various store location of the company and providing the required after sales service constitutes the output stage for Al-Futtaim with respect to the Transformational process model of the operations management.

It is essential to mention that though the process seems an easy task to accomplish, given the largeness of the organization, the firm have to undergo a very complex process. Proper planning and control is required in every stage of conversion process; right from the input stage of the entire process till the output process of final delivery of the product an realization of the revenue for the company.

A Transformational Model of Al- Futtaim is explained through the diagrammatic representation which is given below:

The Process of Inventory management in Al-Futtiyam:

It is due to the presence of large number of stores and retail outlet in the entire Emirates of Dubai and other zones of UAE, there is a need to have significant amount of inventory for each of the products that are sold by the company. The inventories which are stored in the warehouses are done so as to provide the necessary products when they are required by the retail outlet of the company. The inventories are efficiently managed in such a way through an ERP which recognizes the danger limit of inventory and thus help to maintain the optimum level of inventory. Therefore it can be observed that from the inventories are managed based on the traditional methods whereby proper inventory are maintained and requisition of further orders for inventory are don with the estimated level of demand in the present system of the company’s operational management

The Need of Implementation of Change in Process for better Operations Management:

The present system in operations management which is followed by Al-Futtaim is traditional in its process through the implementation of advanced ERP. Therefore in the set of liberalization of the economy of Dubai and with foreign players coming in the retail sector there is an urgent need of revamping the process which will enable them to meet the growing needs of the consumer and also help to reduce the cost of operation of the company. This will not only help in efficient management of the entire supply chain and the operations of the company but also help in the long run sustainability of the organization. Moreover the company will also help gain the required competitive advantage over the existing player and thus help to achieve a better performance than its competitor in the region of the business operation (Peters & Peters, 1991).

Recommendation of the practice of TQM in the operational process for competitive advantage:

The operational processes of the retail firms are very complex in it nature. Any wrong estimation of the demand may lead to increase in cost of the operation and hence profitability. Therefore there is an absolutely necessity to upgrade the entire operational system of the company. The company must implement Total Quality management in the operations of the company which will help to deliver high quality of service to the customer at affordable costs.

Lean Management:

There is an urgent need to implement the Lean management system which will help the company the wastage in the entire supply chain process of Al-Futtaim. Presently it is from the close observation of the existing process there is huge amount of wastage in the process right from procurement till the movement of goods to the retail outlet of the company. This pilferages and wastage in the entire operation of the company is responsible for huge amount of loss to the company which in turn reduces the performance and the profitability of the company.

It is also absolutely necessary to mention that apart from lean management, techniques such as sig sigma must be implemented in the each operations processes of the company. This will help to continuous improvement of the techniques that are involved in the entire operation of the retail organization Al-Futtaim. This will also ensure strict quality control in the procurement process. Therefore the required quality standard for each category will be checked against a benchmark standard for each of the category of products (Lowson,2005) So diversion of quality from the benchmark standard will enable to reject goods and make the supplier responsible for the mistake.

It is through the implementation of Six Sigma, the logistics process also can be improved and also ensure immense cost reduction in the entire logistic which will help through gain competitive advantage through cost focus approach in the logistics process of the company.

Therefore it can be assumed that operations management plays a vital role in the entire daily operation and the maintenance of the business. Especially in the retail organization like Al-Futtaim which is operating in the highly competitive retail market; this department needs to constantly innovate process for providing right quality of customer service for customer retention and thus gaining competitive advantage for long run sustainability of the organization (Stevenson,2005).

Therefore it is with the implementation of the Six Sigma and the lean management system in the procurement function and the logistics system the firm could help to maintain the quality of the product and also the cost associated with the entire operation of the business. The adaptation of the process and the strategic implementation of these techniques will enable to gain competitive advantage and thus ensure the much required long run sustainability of the organization in the competitive environment of the retail business in UAE (Loader, 2002).

Implementation of the Just in time concept in inventory management:

It is essential for the company to implement the strategy of the Just in time in some of the inventory which is costly to the company. So the operation department need to act in way so as to predict the exact demand of those product and ensure procurement of the product and delivery of the product at the right time to the customers. This will help in efficient cost reduction in the entire process of these goods and ensure better profitability for the organization.

Conclusion:

In the immensely competitive environment of the retail industry in UAE especially in the emirates of Dubai, there is an urgent need of the company Al-Futtaim to upgrade the existing operational process to a new process for competitive edge over the other players. The implementation of the techniques like TQM, lean management system and JIT techniques for efficient management of the entire supply chain, logistics and the operational processes of the company. This will not only improve the total system and the operational processes of the company but will also enable them to gain a competitive advantage and ensure the long run sustainability of the organization in the today’s competitive environment particularly in te retail industry of UAE.

References:

• Fernie, J. and Sparks, L. (2009). Logistics & retail management. London: Kogan Page Ltd.
• Greasley, A. (2008). Operations management. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.
• Hugos, M. and Thomas, C. (2006). Supply chain management in the retail industry. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.
• Loader, D. (2002). Relationship and resource management in operations. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.
• Naidu, N., Babu, K. and Rajendra, G. (2006). Total quality management. New Delhi: New Age International.
• Peters, B. and Peters, J. (1991). Total quality management. New York, N.Y.: Conference Board.
• Slack, N., Chambers, S. and Johnston, R. (2010). Operations management. Harlow, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall.
• Stevenson, W. (2005). Operations management. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
• Lowson R; “Analysing theEffectiveness of European Retail Sourcing Strategies”, European Management Journal, Volume19, Number 5, (2001) pp 543-551
• Fernie J. and Sparks L; (eds.), “Logistics and Retail Management Insights into Current Practice and Trends from Leading Experts” Kogan Page Ltd., London, UK. (1998)
• Popp A;“Swamped in Information but Starved of Data”: Information and Intermediaries in Clothing Supply Chains, Supply Chain Management: an International Journal, Vol 5, No 3, (2000) pp 151-161.
• Gaur, V., Raman, A. and Swaminathan, J. (2009). Special Issue of Production and Operations Management : Retail Operations. Production and Operations Management, 18(2), pp.240-240.
• Special Issue of Production and Operations Management : Retail Operations. (2009). Production and Operations Management, 18(1), pp.127-127.

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ADDIS ABABA 1. Take a given hospital in Ethiopia and define hospital operations management as a transformation process. Consider all the inputs, processes and the outputs in the hospital operations system and explain each of them.

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7 Organizational Structure Types (With Examples)

Updated: May 29, 2024, 5:39pm

Table of Contents

What is an organizational structure, 4 common types of organizational structures, 3 alternative organizational structures, how to choose the best organizational structure, frequently asked questions (faqs).

Every company needs an organizational structure—whether they realize it or not. The organizational structure is how the company delegates roles, responsibilities, job functions, accountability and decision-making authority. The organizational structure often shows the “chain of command” and how information moves within the company. Having an organizational structure that aligns with your company’s goals and objectives is crucial. This article describes the various types of organizational structures, the benefits of creating one for your business and specific elements that should be included.

Employees want to understand their job responsibilities, whom they report to, what decisions they can and should make and how they interact with other people and teams within the company. An organizational structure creates this framework. Organizational structures can be centralized or decentralized, hierarchical or circular, flat or vertical.

Centralized vs. Decentralized

Many companies use the traditional model of a centralized organizational structure. With centralized leadership, there is a transparent chain of command and each role has well-defined responsibilities.

Conversely, with a decentralized organizational structure, teams have more autonomy to make decisions and there may be cross-collaboration between groups. Decentralized leadership can help companies remain agile and adapt to changing needs.

Hierarchical vs. Circular

A hierarchical organization structure is the pyramid-shaped organization chart many people are used to seeing. There is one role at the top of the pyramid and the chain of command moves down, with each level decreasing in responsibilities and authority.

On the other hand, a circular organization chart looks like concentric circles with company leadership in the center circle. Instead of information flowing down to the next “level,” information flows out to the next ring of management.

Vertical vs. Flat

A vertical organizational chart has a clear chain of command with a small group of leaders at the top—or in the center, in the case of a circular structure—and each subsequent tier has less authority and responsibility. As discussed below, functional, product-based, market-based and geographical organizational structures are vertical structures.

With a flat organization structure, a person may report to more than one person and there may be cross-department responsibilities and decision-making authority. The matrix organizational structure described below is an example of a flat structure.

Benefits of Creating an Organizational Structure

There are many benefits to creating an organizational structure that aligns with the company’s operations, goals and objectives. Clearly disseminating this information to employees:

• Provides accountability
• Clarifies expectations
• Documents criteria for promotion
• Designates decision-making authority
• Creates efficiency
• Fosters collaboration

Essential Elements of Clear Organizational Structure

Regardless of the special type of organizational structure you choose, it should have the following components:

• Chain of command
• Roles and responsibilities
• Scope of control
• Decision-making authority
• Departments or teams within the organization

Functional/Role-Based Structure

A functional—or role-based—structure is one of the most common organizational structures. This structure has centralized leadership and the vertical, hierarchical structure has clearly defined roles, job functions, chains of command and decision-making authority. A functional structure facilitates specialization, scalability and accountability. It also establishes clear expectations and has a well-defined chain of command. However, this structure runs the risk of being too confining and it can impede employee growth. It also has the potential for a lack of cross-department communication and collaboration.

Product- or Market-Based Structure

Along with the functional structure, the product- or market-based structure is hierarchical, vertical and centralized. However, instead of being structured around typical roles and job functions, it is structured around the company’s products or markets. This kind of structure can benefit companies that have several product lines or markets, but it can be challenging to scale. It can also foster inefficiency if product or market teams have similar functions, and without good communication across teams, companies run the risk of incompatibility among various product/market teams.

Geographical Structure

The geographical structure is a good option for companies with a broad geographic footprint in an industry where it is essential to be close to their customers and suppliers. The geographical structure enables the company to create bespoke organizational structures that align with the location’s culture, language and professional systems. From a broad perspective, it appears very similar to the product-based structure above.

Process-Based Structure

Similar to the functional structure, the process-based structure is structured in a way that follows a product’s or service’s life cycle. For instance, the structure can be broken down into R&D, product creation, order fulfillment, billing and customer services. This structure can foster efficiency, teamwork and specialization, but it can also create barriers between the teams if communication isn’t prioritized.

Matrix Structure

With a matrix organizational structure, there are multiple reporting obligations. For instance, a marketing specialist may have reporting obligations within the marketing and product teams. A matrix structure offers flexibility, enables shared resources and fosters collaboration within the company. However, the organizational structure can be complex, so it can cause confusion about accountability and communication, especially among new employees.

Circular Structure

Similar to the functional and product-based structure, a circular structure is also centralized and hierarchical, but instead of responsibility and decision-making authority flowing down vertically, responsibility and decision-making authority flow out from the center. A circular structure can promote communication and collaboration but can also be confusing, especially for new employees, because there is no clear chain of command.

Organic Structure

Unlike vertical structures, this structure facilitates communication between and among all staff. It is the most complex, but it can also be the most productive. Although it can be challenging to know who has ultimate decision-making authority, it can also foster a positive company culture because employees don’t feel like they have “superiors.” This structure can also be more cost-efficient because it reduces the need for middle managers.

There is no one “right” organizational structure. When deciding which structure will work best for your company, consider the following:

• Current roles and teams within the company. How are job functions currently organized? Does it foster communication and productivity? Does it impede or encourage employee growth?
• Your strategic plan. What are your company’s goals for the short-term and long-term?
• Feedback from employees, leadership and other stakeholders. What do those within your company say about how the company is structured? What feedback do you have from other stakeholders, such as customers and suppliers?
• Alignment. What structure will best support your strategic plans and address any feedback received?

What is the most common organizational structure?

A functional organizational structure is one of the most common organizational structures. If you are still determining what kind of structure to use, this organizational structure can be an excellent place to start.

What is the difference between an organizational structure and an organizational chart?

An organizational chart is a graphic that depicts the organizational structure. The chart may include job titles or it can be personalized to include names and photos.

What are the four types of organizational structures?

A functional—or role-based—structure is one of the most common organizational structures. The second type—the product- or market-based structure—is also hierarchical, vertical and centralized. Similar to these is the third structure—the process-based structure—which is structured in a way that follows a product’s or service’s life cycle. Lastly, the geographical structure is suitable for businesses with a broad geographic footprint.

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• Supply chain and manufacturing

supply chain management (SCM)

• Scott Robinson, New Era Technology
• Diann Daniel, Executive Editor

What is supply chain management (SCM)?

Supply chain management (SCM) is the optimization of a product's creation and flow from raw material sourcing to production, logistics and delivery to the final customer.

SCM encompasses the integrated planning and execution of processes required to manage the movement of materials, information and financial capital in activities that broadly include demand planning , sourcing, production, inventory management and storage, transportation -- or logistics -- and returning excess or defective products. Effective supply chain management relies on business strategy, specialized software and collaboration.

Because it's such an expansive, complex undertaking, each partner -- from suppliers to manufacturers and beyond -- must communicate and work together to create efficiencies, manage risk and adapt quickly to change.

Other areas of major concern for today's companies include supply chain sustainability -- which covers environmental, social and legal issues, in addition to sustainable procurement -- and the closely related concept of corporate social responsibility -- which evaluates a company's effect on the environment and social well-being.

This article is part of

• Guide to supply chain management
• Which also includes:
• 5 potential benefits of blockchain in supply chain logistics
• The supply chain sustainability software market demystified
• demand planning

Download this entire guide for FREE now!

The history of supply chain management

Supply chain management has been essential to business since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Mass-production manufacturing was a key driver in supply chain evolution, along with the standardization of automobile parts to streamline the manufacturing process. With the advent of computers in business, SCM took another great leap forward as it became possible to coordinate supply chain management across many different sources, including data from suppliers, distribution centers and transportation providers.

Even so, supply chain management was largely a linear process, and one in which only a limited number of employees participated.

The simultaneous arrival of the internet and the expansion of the global economy made the linear view of the supply chain obsolete. Supply chain management now describes the integration of many complex networks of dynamic data sources that are often updating in real time, 24/7, and mastery of this complexity is increasingly essential to the assessment of customer needs and the accurate forecasting and efficient fulfillment of customer demand. This demand-driven operational model requires organizations to maintain SCM systems that are highly responsive and flexible. These systems require a considerable institutional investment, diligent communication with partner companies and broad participation of employees within the enterprise.

Benefits of supply chain management

Supply chain management creates numerous benefits that translate to higher profits, better brand image and greater competitive advantage. These include the following:

• Better ability to predict and meet customer demand.
• Better supply chain visibility, risk management and predictive capabilities.
• More accurate forecasting to support decision-making.
• Fewer process inefficiencies and less product waste.
• Improvements in quality.
• Increased sustainability, both from a societal and an environmental standpoint.
• Lower overhead.
• Improvements in cash flow.
• More efficient logistics.

5 stages of supply chain management

Supply chain management can be broadly categorized into the following five steps or areas:

• Plan. Using supply chain analytics and materials management features in enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) systems, organizations create strategic plans to meet customer demand for product and avoid a bullwhip effect .
• Source. Organizations identify and select vendors that can supply materials in a streamlined and efficient way according to agreements. Supply chain collaboration starts at this stage and is important throughout the supply chain management process.
• Make. In this stage, products are manufactured. This includes production scheduling, testing, ensuring compliance requirements are followed, packing, storage and release. Multiple machines are likely to be involved, especially for larger companies, and these increasingly use technologies such as internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) to work more efficiently.
• Deliver. This stage pertains to logistics and focuses on getting finished goods to consumers, in whatever manner of transportation is needed. As the Amazon effect has grown , more focus is on doorstep delivery. Greater emphasis is now also on supply chain leaders working more closely with customer service. Inventory management and warehouse management systems are especially crucial at this stage.
• Return. This stage includes all product returns, including defective products and products that will no longer be supported. The return stage also includes elements from other stages, including inventory and transportation management.

Example of SCM

The most basic version of a supply chain includes a company, its suppliers and its customers. An example would be a raw material producer, manufacturer, distributor, retailer and retail customer.

Most supply chains are far more complex and layered. This is why examples of unsuccessful supply chain management, where risk isn't managed or disruption occurs, can be so helpful.

Food shortages during COVID-19 are a good example of supply chain management gone awry. The food supply chain was disrupted in several ways. For example, many restaurants and schools closed to accommodate stay-at-home orders, causing bulk products meant to go to institutional settings to no longer be needed. Instead, far more consumers were eating at home, which had different packaging requirements, among other issues. The meat industry also ran into supply chain management disruptions due to COVID-19 outbreaks in slaughterhouses.

Now more than three years later, supply chains are still reeling from the effects of material and labor shortages. But a different problem exists: According to data from global management consulting firm Kearney , excess inventory of high-end electronics components is a $250 billion problem. After organizations raced to replenish and manufacture key components, suppliers were left with excess inventory as growth and demand leveled out.

The future of supply chain management

The next phase of supply chain management evolution will likely include the deployment of AI resources and machine learning to speed the processing of data and expand the utility of its results; and supply chain planning, a periodic undertaking in the past, will become a continuous-improvement process.

The role of supply chain management software

Technology is critical in managing today's supply chains, and ERP vendors offer modules that focus on key functions within SCM. There are also business software vendors that focus specifically on SCM. Important areas to note include the following:

• Supply chain planning software for activities such as demand management.
• Supply chain execution software for activities such as day-to-day manufacturing operations.
• Supply chain visibility software for tasks such as spotting and anticipating risks and proactively managing them .
• Inventory management software for tasks such as tracking and optimizing inventory levels.
• Logistics management software and transportation management systems for activities such as managing the transport of goods, especially across global supply chains.
• Warehouse management systems for activities related to warehouse operations.

Infor, Manhattan Associates, Oracle, Panasonic -- which acquired Blue Yonder in 2021 -- and SAP are examples of vendors of supply chain software.

The increasingly global nature of today's supply chains and the rise of e-commerce -- with its focus on nearly instant small deliveries straight to consumers -- are posing challenges, particularly in logistics and demand planning. Strategies such as lean manufacturing and newer approaches, like demand-driven material requirements planning, might prove helpful.

Technology -- especially big data, predictive analytics , IoT technology, supply chain analytics, robotics and autonomous vehicles -- is also being used to help solve modern challenges, including in the areas of supply chain risk and disruption and supply chain sustainability.

For example, IoT can help with transparency and traceability to help boost food quality and safety by using sensors to monitor the temperature of perishable food while it's in transit. Analytics can also help determine where to put smart lockers in densely populated areas to reduce the number of single-item deliveries and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Learn how RFID can help companies improve product availability by managing their supply chain and logistics operations.

Continue Reading About supply chain management (SCM)

• What role do ERP systems play in supply chain management?
• Ways to use social media in supply chain management
• Fielding IT management challenges: Supply chain edition
• Benefits of integrating WMS and TMS software

Related Terms

Dig deeper on supply chain and manufacturing.

transportation management system (TMS)

supply chain analytics

Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM adds to logistics management

reverse logistics

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Satellite webhook and Insights automation for efficient RHEL operations

Red Hat Satellite is an infrastructure management tool designed for the management and operations of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environments. It allows system administrators to scale the management of their datacenters to thousands of hosts at ease, while implementing and enforcing secure and compliant standard operating environments (SOE).

In this article, we investigate the use of Satellite webhooks and automation to interact with third-party tooling and react to events occurring within Satellite. This is traditionally used to improve the overall operational efficiency by either forwarding events to third-party auditing and monitoring tools (e.g., Splunk), or using events as triggers for automation (e.g., Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform , ServiceNow). To this point, we explore how this approach can be used to perform automation tasks on Red Hat Insights by integrating with Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console (HCC).

Although our example shows simple operations automating the synchronization and assignment of hostgroups and inventory groups between Satellite and Red Hat Insights , the approach can be replicated and extended to perform any automation in your organization. For example, one could think of enforcing policies in Insights (e.g., compliance or baselines assignment) or using automation in conjunction with Satellite scheduling to generate bespoke reports from Insights data.

Red Hat Satellite webhooks and automation

Red Hat Satellite recently released a new  webhook functionality to perform action(s) when events occur within Satellite. In this  article , the functionality is used to automatically get alerts triggered when an errata installation is complete on RHEL hosts.

With webhooks in place, one can monitor all operations happening on their Satellite and use them to automate their operational processes more efficiently. Traditionally, webhooks are used to drive monitoring and automation with third party applications such as Splunk, ServiceNow, Ansible Automation Platform, or  Event-Driven Ansible , to name a few.

In this article, we decide to call Ansible automation hosted on Satellite itself as an action to a Satellite webhook trigger. All we need to do is launch Satellite automation from its Job Template API when a webhook event is triggered.

We use data provided as part of the webhook event to drive operations tasks with Ansible. In our example, we use Ansible automation to integrate to Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console and perform queries against Red Hat Insights API. See Figure 1.

The next sections provide relevant and useful resources on Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Insights to learn more about each feature.

References for Red Hat Satellite

More information on Satellite webhooks can be found in the  product documentation for Red Hat Satellite. A list of all available Satellite webhook events is also  available .

Using Ansible automation and running a Job Template from Satellite is documented in this  knowledge base article and a list of job template examples is provided in the  product documentation . 

Further, the API documentation for your Satellite instance can be found by replacing  <your satellite fqdn> in the following URL:  https://<your satellite fqdn>/apidoc/v2.html . In particular we make use of the  /apidoc/v2/job_invocations/create.en.html method in the example when configuring Satellite webhooks to launch a job template automation.

References for Red Hat Insights

Red Hat Insights APIs documentation can be found on the Hybrid Cloud Console  API documentation . A  cheat sheet on using the Red Hat Insights API is available in case you need help getting started interacting with the API.

In this article, we use the Inventory Groups API for CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations, as shown in Figure 2. The documentation for the relevant groups endpoint can be found under  Managed Inventory API .

Finally, the following  knowledge base article documents various operations that can be performed using the API to automate the management of your inventory groups and your system assignment.

Creating a service account for the integration

In order for Red Hat Satellite to perform requests against Insights APIs, we first need to create a  Service Account with appropriate permissions in Red Hat Hybrid Cloud Console.

To do so, navigate to Settings (gear icon) and select Service Accounts . Clicking Create service account and going through the creation wizard results in the creation of a new service account for your Satellite automation. 

Info alert: Note

Please ensure you keep the client id and client secret credentials provided as it is not possible to retrieve them later. We will store those credentials in Satellite as global parameters.

Next, we need to provide the appropriate RBAC permissions to the service account to perform the intended operations. In our example, our automation performs CRUD operations on inventory groups and inventory hosts. As such, we need  inventory:hosts:read ,  inventory:hosts:write (can be inherited from Inventory Hosts Administrator role) and  inventory:groups:read ,  inventory:groups:write (can be inherited from Inventory Groups Administrator role) permissions.

We can create a new user group with the Inventory Hosts Administrator and Inventory Groups Administrator roles and assign the service account from the Groups page under User Access. Additional documentation about managing service accounts in Hybrid Cloud Console is available in the  product documentation .

Last step for Satellite to use our credentials is to set those as global parameters in Satellite. To do so, log in to Satellite and navigate to Configure and Global Parameters . From there, create two new name/value pairs called  hcc_client_id and  hcc_client_secret (select string for validation, and hidden value option) and set their value to the credentials retrieved in HCC while creating your service account. See Figure 3.

From now on, your Satellite automation can query global parameters to retrieve the HCC service account credentials required to perform Insights API queries.

Creating a job template for the Satellite automation

We can now configure the Ansible automation in Satellite that is going to be launched when an event triggers. This can be done by creating a new job template.

Note that the code used in the article is provided in  GitHub to facilitate imports. Our job template is available in  custom_automation_satellite_to_insights.erb file. One can download and import it in Satellite, or create it from scratch.

From Hosts and Job Templates , click Import and select the downloaded file. The import creates a new job template with the relevant automation code, as shown in Figure 4.

Looking at the Inputs tab of our job template, we notice a set of template inputs called action , hostgroup_name , and insights_id . Those inputs are populated at runtime by the webhook template after parsing the triggered event. These inputs are then replaced in the template when generating the Ansible playbook that performs automation against Insights API.

Looking at the automation, we can see how the template performs lookups of parameters and inputs. For example, global parameters are queried using  <%= host_param('hcc_client_id') %> whereas template inputs are queried using <%= input('hostgroup_name') %> . Further one may notice how the template performs different tasks based on the event being triggered according to the action input condition (e.g., hostgroup created and updated, host updated, etc).

The Job tab of our job template is set to Ansible Playbook for Job Category and Ansible for Provider Type. Figure 5 depicts this menu.

The last step we need is getting the id of our new job template, as this is a required parameter when calling Satellite API to launch a job. An easy way to find out the id is to look at the Satellite URL parameter when editing the job template in the UI. From Hosts , Job Templates , click on your job template and look at the URL. It should be in the following format:  https://<your satellite fqdn>/job_templates/<job template id>-<job_template_name>/edit , where  <job template id> is the id we are after. We use the id in the following section while configuring our webhook template.

Creating webhooks for triggering Satellite automation

Now that our job template is configured, we can execute it from the Satellite API by passing its job_template_id and a target host to run the automation on. In the next section, we configure a Satellite webhook and associated webhook template to build this request and call the Satellite API to launch our automation. 

Creating a new webhook template

First, we need to create a new wehbook template that is used to parse the event data and generate an appropriate payload for our Satellite API query.

The code used in the article is provided in  GitHub to facilitate imports. Our webhook template is available in  webhook_template_host_groups.erb file. One can download and import it in Satellite, or create it from scratch.

From Administer and Webhook Templates , click Create template . Use the code of the file provided for your template. Note that the  job_template_id values (two locations in the template) must be replaced by the id of your job template you retrieved in the previous section. Similarly, the name search lookup ( search_query parameter) must be replaced by your own satellite FQDN (fully qualified domain name) so that it is used as a target for running automation. The value should look like:  name = <your satellite fqdn> . See Figure 6.

Note that the webhook template is conditioned based on the event name (including hostgroup_ and host_ ). The payload is populated according to the need of the job template automation configured earlier. This allows to grab and populate hostgroup and host related parameters (e.g. hostgroup_name and insights_id ). 

The webhook template is now configured and ready to be used by Satellite webhooks. We configure them in the next section.

Creating webhooks for Satellite events

The last step of our configuration is to create webhooks in Satellite to listen for triggered events and run the appropriate action. In our case, we want to call Satellite API to launch automation when an event related to host or hostgroup is triggered. 

Configuring a webhook in Satellite can be done from Administer and Webhooks . Clicking Create new takes you to a configuration screen.

The first step consists of selecting an event to subscribe to (e.g. Hostgroup Created). The target URL consists of the Satellite API endpoint that is called to launch the job template automation. The name of your Satellite instance must be replaced in the example provided following this format:  https://<your satellite fqdn>/api/job_invocations . The template can be set to the new webhook template created in the previous section. Finally, set POST as HTTP Method and select Enabled , as shown in Figure 7.

In the Credentials tab, set User and Password credentials that have the right to launch job templates on your Satellite API, as shown in Figure 8.

Once done, you should be able to replicate a similar setup for other Satellite events. We are specifically interested in ‘Host Updated’ event, and ‘Hostgroup Created/Destroyed/Updated’ events for our automation example. Other events on host can be ignored.

That’s it! We can now test our configuration end-to-end and validate that it is working as expected.

Validating our configuration and automation

We are now ready to test our configuration end-to-end. The easiest way is to create and delete hostgroups from Configure and Host Groups .

Assuming all steps are configured correctly, each individual action should trigger the execution of our job template. You can monitor the launch and execution of the automation from Monitor and Jobs . From there, you can see all job invocations and their status. You can also access the generated automation playbook that is executed for each job as this can be useful for troubleshooting.

If everything is successful, you can then validate that the new groups are created/deleted in Red Hat Insights by navigating to Inventory and Groups . 

Similarly, you can start assigning or changing the assignment of hosts to hostgroups in Satellite and validate that they get assigned accordingly in Red Hat Insights.

Discussion and limitation or our example

The example provided in this article is primarily meant to showcase how Satellite automation and webhooks can work together to perform integration to third-party applications. The code provided is an example of integrating to Red Hat Insights API. The code is not supported by Red Hat and is not meant to be used in your production environment without further testing and development to ensure it matches your requirements.

Here are some points about our automation example that one should be aware of:

• A nested Satellite hostgroup is translated to a new group in Insights (there is no hierarchy for groups in Insights) following the naming pattern:  <parent name>/<nested name> .
• Name change on a Satellite hostgroup results in a new group being created in Insights (the previous group remains and must be deleted manually in Insights).
• System assignment only works if the target group is present in Insights. One may want to replicate existing Satellite hostgroups in Insights prior to enabling the automation.

This article described how Red Hat Satellite events, webhooks and job templates can constitute a real platform for automating management operations. We use those features to interact with Red Hat Insights API and manage inventory groups and system assignment automatically according to Satellite hostgroup configuration. The job template and webhook template files used in this example are available for download in a  GitHub repository .

Although our example shows simple operations synchronizing Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Insights, the approach can be replicated to perform any other operational tasks that can be automated in your organization.

We are very interested to get your thoughts and feedback on ways to improve and grow our product. Please share your experience with us by using the Feedback form located on the right side of the  Hybrid Cloud Console .

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Python Operators

Precedence and associativity of operators in python.

• Python Arithmetic Operators
• Difference between / vs. // operator in Python
• Python - Star or Asterisk operator ( * )
• What does the Double Star operator mean in Python?
• Division Operators in Python
• Modulo operator (%) in Python
• Python Logical Operators
• Python OR Operator
• Difference between 'and' and '&' in Python
• not Operator in Python | Boolean Logic

Ternary Operator in Python

• Python Bitwise Operators

Python Assignment Operators

Assignment operators in python.

• Walrus Operator in Python 3.8
• Increment += and Decrement -= Assignment Operators in Python
• Merging and Updating Dictionary Operators in Python 3.9
• New '=' Operator in Python3.8 f-string

Python Relational Operators

• Comparison Operators in Python
• Python NOT EQUAL operator
• Difference between == and is operator in Python
• Chaining comparison operators in Python
• Python Membership and Identity Operators
• Difference between != and is not operator in Python

In Python programming, Operators in general are used to perform operations on values and variables. These are standard symbols used for logical and arithmetic operations. In this article, we will look into different types of Python operators. 

• OPERATORS: These are the special symbols. Eg- + , * , /, etc.
• OPERAND: It is the value on which the operator is applied.

Types of Operators in Python

• Arithmetic Operators
• Comparison Operators
• Logical Operators
• Bitwise Operators
• Assignment Operators
• Identity Operators and Membership Operators

Arithmetic Operators in Python

Python Arithmetic operators are used to perform basic mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication , and division .

In Python 3.x the result of division is a floating-point while in Python 2.x division of 2 integers was an integer. To obtain an integer result in Python 3.x floored (// integer) is used.

Example of Arithmetic Operators in Python

Division operators.

In Python programming language Division Operators allow you to divide two numbers and return a quotient, i.e., the first number or number at the left is divided by the second number or number at the right and returns the quotient. 

There are two types of division operators: 

Float division

• Floor division

The quotient returned by this operator is always a float number, no matter if two numbers are integers. For example:

Example: The code performs division operations and prints the results. It demonstrates that both integer and floating-point divisions return accurate results. For example, ’10/2′ results in ‘5.0’ , and ‘-10/2’ results in ‘-5.0’ .

Integer division( Floor division)

The quotient returned by this operator is dependent on the argument being passed. If any of the numbers is float, it returns output in float. It is also known as Floor division because, if any number is negative, then the output will be floored. For example:

Example: The code demonstrates integer (floor) division operations using the // in Python operators . It provides results as follows: ’10//3′ equals ‘3’ , ‘-5//2’ equals ‘-3’ , ‘ 5.0//2′ equals ‘2.0’ , and ‘-5.0//2’ equals ‘-3.0’ . Integer division returns the largest integer less than or equal to the division result.

Precedence of Arithmetic Operators in Python

The precedence of Arithmetic Operators in Python is as follows:

• P – Parentheses
• E – Exponentiation
• M – Multiplication (Multiplication and division have the same precedence)
• D – Division
• A – Addition (Addition and subtraction have the same precedence)
• S – Subtraction

The modulus of Python operators helps us extract the last digit/s of a number. For example:

• x % 10 -> yields the last digit
• x % 100 -> yield last two digits

Arithmetic Operators With Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Modulo and Power

Here is an example showing how different Arithmetic Operators in Python work:

Example: The code performs basic arithmetic operations with the values of ‘a’ and ‘b’ . It adds (‘+’) , subtracts (‘-‘) , multiplies (‘*’) , computes the remainder (‘%’) , and raises a to the power of ‘b (**)’ . The results of these operations are printed.

Note: Refer to Differences between / and // for some interesting facts about these two Python operators.

Comparison of Python Operators

In Python Comparison of Relational operators compares the values. It either returns True or False according to the condition.

= is an assignment operator and == comparison operator.

Precedence of Comparison Operators in Python

In Python, the comparison operators have lower precedence than the arithmetic operators. All the operators within comparison operators have the same precedence order.

Example of Comparison Operators in Python

Let’s see an example of Comparison Operators in Python.

Example: The code compares the values of ‘a’ and ‘b’ using various comparison Python operators and prints the results. It checks if ‘a’ is greater than, less than, equal to, not equal to, greater than, or equal to, and less than or equal to ‘b’ .

Logical Operators in Python

Python Logical operators perform Logical AND , Logical OR , and Logical NOT operations. It is used to combine conditional statements.

Precedence of Logical Operators in Python

The precedence of Logical Operators in Python is as follows:

• Logical not
• logical and

Example of Logical Operators in Python

The following code shows how to implement Logical Operators in Python:

Example: The code performs logical operations with Boolean values. It checks if both ‘a’ and ‘b’ are true ( ‘and’ ), if at least one of them is true ( ‘or’ ), and negates the value of ‘a’ using ‘not’ . The results are printed accordingly.

Bitwise Operators in Python

Python Bitwise operators act on bits and perform bit-by-bit operations. These are used to operate on binary numbers.

Precedence of Bitwise Operators in Python

The precedence of Bitwise Operators in Python is as follows:

• Bitwise NOT
• Bitwise Shift
• Bitwise AND
• Bitwise XOR

Here is an example showing how Bitwise Operators in Python work:

Example: The code demonstrates various bitwise operations with the values of ‘a’ and ‘b’ . It performs bitwise AND (&) , OR (|) , NOT (~) , XOR (^) , right shift (>>) , and left shift (<<) operations and prints the results. These operations manipulate the binary representations of the numbers.

Python Assignment operators are used to assign values to the variables.

Let’s see an example of Assignment Operators in Python.

Example: The code starts with ‘a’ and ‘b’ both having the value 10. It then performs a series of operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and a left shift operation on ‘b’ . The results of each operation are printed, showing the impact of these operations on the value of ‘b’ .

Identity Operators in Python

In Python, is and is not are the identity operators both are used to check if two values are located on the same part of the memory. Two variables that are equal do not imply that they are identical. 

Example Identity Operators in Python

Let’s see an example of Identity Operators in Python.

Example: The code uses identity operators to compare variables in Python. It checks if ‘a’ is not the same object as ‘b’ (which is true because they have different values) and if ‘a’ is the same object as ‘c’ (which is true because ‘c’ was assigned the value of ‘a’ ).

Membership Operators in Python

In Python, in and not in are the membership operators that are used to test whether a value or variable is in a sequence.

Examples of Membership Operators in Python

The following code shows how to implement Membership Operators in Python:

Example: The code checks for the presence of values ‘x’ and ‘y’ in the list. It prints whether or not each value is present in the list. ‘x’ is not in the list, and ‘y’ is present, as indicated by the printed messages. The code uses the ‘in’ and ‘not in’ Python operators to perform these checks.

in Python, Ternary operators also known as conditional expressions are operators that evaluate something based on a condition being true or false. It was added to Python in version 2.5. 

It simply allows testing a condition in a single line replacing the multiline if-else making the code compact.

Syntax :   [on_true] if [expression] else [on_false] 

Examples of Ternary Operator in Python

The code assigns values to variables ‘a’ and ‘b’ (10 and 20, respectively). It then uses a conditional assignment to determine the smaller of the two values and assigns it to the variable ‘min’ . Finally, it prints the value of ‘min’ , which is 10 in this case.

In Python, Operator precedence and associativity determine the priorities of the operator.

Operator Precedence in Python

This is used in an expression with more than one operator with different precedence to determine which operation to perform first.

Let’s see an example of how Operator Precedence in Python works:

Example: The code first calculates and prints the value of the expression 10 + 20 * 30 , which is 610. Then, it checks a condition based on the values of the ‘name’ and ‘age’ variables. Since the name is “ Alex” and the condition is satisfied using the or operator, it prints “Hello! Welcome.”

Operator Associativity in Python

If an expression contains two or more operators with the same precedence then Operator Associativity is used to determine. It can either be Left to Right or from Right to Left.

The following code shows how Operator Associativity in Python works:

Example: The code showcases various mathematical operations. It calculates and prints the results of division and multiplication, addition and subtraction, subtraction within parentheses, and exponentiation. The code illustrates different mathematical calculations and their outcomes.

To try your knowledge of Python Operators, you can take out the quiz on Operators in Python . 

Python Operator Exercise Questions

Below are two Exercise Questions on Python Operators. We have covered arithmetic operators and comparison operators in these exercise questions. For more exercises on Python Operators visit the page mentioned below.

Q1. Code to implement basic arithmetic operations on integers

Q2. Code to implement Comparison operations on integers

Explore more Exercises: Practice Exercise on Operators in Python

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20 Best Task Management Software Tools to Elevate Your Workflows [2024 Edition]

Sudarshan Somanathan

Head of Content

June 12, 2024

Just a few years back, I was always stuck in a cycle of frustration and self-blame—all because my professional workload was spiraling out of control . I’d make ambitious plans for me and my team and watch in agony as they fell flat. Things became so bad that I got used to the anxiety that accompanied my zillion unattended tasks. What followed was constant overwhelm, a clear lack of motivation , and even sneaky health repercussions. 😔

Eventually, I confided in some peers and realized that I was definitely not alone. In fact, there’s research revealing that as many as 41% of workers experience stress due to their heavy workloads. 

I was able to get out of this rough patch over time, and I cannot emphasize enough how life-changing it was for me to find the right task management software. You see, it’s never the amount of work that creates chaos—but poor task management.

In my case, for instance, I once unknowingly orchestrated a team burnout as I had the habit of setting over-enthusiastic ( read: unreasonable ) deadlines and delegating tasks without realistic workload considerations. It was only after I found my perfect task management tool that I had the knowledge and visibility needed to make more practical choices.

I’d call myself a much saner task manager now, and I hope my team here at ClickUp agrees. We have worked together to bring you this article exploring the 20 best task management software , with a special focus on tools that can assist you in assigning tasks and optimizing priorities effectively in 2024. You can learn about their key features, limitations, and pricing before locking your ideal task manager tool. 🌻

What Should You Look for in a Task Management Tool?

• 1. ClickUp—best overall project & task management software

2. Asana—best for remote teams

3. jira—best for experienced it professionals, 4. monday.com—best for marketing and pmo teams, 5. trello—best for small teams, 6. hive—best task management software for multi-layered team collaboration, 7. meistertask—best for kanban task management, 8. ntask—best task management software for scheduling, 9. zenhub—best for software teams, 10. zoho projects—best for complex project management, 11. activecollab—best for personalized task management experience for client-based workflows, 12. wrike—best for scalable workflow management, 13. todoist—best for teams on a budget, 14. proofhub—best for granular task tracking, 15. smarttask—best for managing multiple projects, 16. hubspot (hubspot task management)—best for crm tasks, 17. paymo—best for client tasks and bookings, 18. timecamp—best for time tracking and billing tasks, 19. any.do—best for creating to-do lists, 20. smartsheet—best for spreadsheet-style task management, leveraging the best task management tools: which one to pick.

For cross-collaborative teams like mine, task management software doesn’t just help identify, monitor, and manage tasks . It goes beyond supporting a simple to-do list and offers features to efficiently collaborate on elaborate workflows for effective goal completion .

The best task management software allows my team to set deadlines, prioritize tasks , track progress, and adjust schedules with ease, which results in smoother decision-making. Other useful functionalities that we prioritize include:

• Flexibility: In my experience, good task management software is always the one that has a user-friendly interface. Bonus points if it runs smoothly on all major operating systems across devices, giving my team more control over everyday work
• Time tracking: We find it’s best to go for a task management solution that lets us improve our time management through seamless time tracking
• Task automation: As your business grows, automation plays a key role in expanding your task base sustainably. The best task management software lets us automate recurring admin tasks, leaving everyone more time to focus on cognitively demanding, high-level assignments
• Communication support: Because I’m running a busy, distributed team, I value tools that support productive task-related discussions, file sharing, and instant announcements
• Reporting and analytics: We’ve noticed that quality task management software provides reporting features to record and analyze information (like clock-in/clock-out data, absence, and overtime hours) for productivity analysis, invoicing, and payroll management
• Integration with other tools: Now this may be a personal preference, but I like it when my task management system integrates with other software we use, like messaging apps , project management tools , and writing assistants , simply because this eliminates context switching and makes team collaboration and task monitoring way easier 😇

20 Best Task Management Software for Balanced Task Planning and Execution

When we started testing out the tons of task management apps available on the market, one aspect was clear—they’re not all cut from the same cloth. For instance, some are versatile tools, while others focus on nailing specific functions like task dependencies.

We eventually narrowed down to 20 best task management software that just had to be on our list. We cherry-picked them after considering diverse criteria like feature set and affordability, so you’re sure to find something that addresses your immediate needs. 🧐

Here’s a snapshot of our list, which will be followed by detailed and honest reviews of each software:

1. ClickUp —best overall project & task management software

Why end with a bang when we can start with one? 💥

We might be a bit biased here, but ClickUp has repeatedly proved itself to be the best task management solution for individuals, professionals, and teams alike. It’s not just us; even G2 considers it to be the best-rated task management and team task management software , ranking it #1 in 15+ competitive categories in 2024!

What makes ClickUp click is its AI-enabled, end-to-end support for managing tasks and priorities, monitoring progress, and staying productive.

How we use ClickUp for hands-on task management

The way we leverage ClickUp for my team is pretty straightforward—for starters, we go to ClickUp Tasks for everything, from centralized task planning and scheduling to tracking individual assignments.

I love how the platform makes our task management process super intuitive and data-rich. We get to categorize team tasks by type and set Custom Task Status from To Do to Done to make tracking effortless. We can use as many Custom Fields as we want to set deadlines, add assignees, and define further details we want to track or filter through. For each task assignment, our team can also: 

• Add links and comments to centralize contextual knowledge and discussions
• Specify task dependencies to offer visibility for schedule management
• Define subtasks and checklists to support extensive deliverables 
• Use @mentions and action items to delegate tasks and share updates

Our Task View is by default a pop-up window, but we can also minimize it to a sidebar or Task Tray if we want to keep our individual to-do lists accessible or track time as we go.

If you are a visual task manager like me, there’s good news! I frequently use the 15+ project views of this task management software for comprehensive visibility over our entire workflow—I manage tasks on Kanban boards, sort through them in the List view, and visualize timelines with colorful Gantt charts. 🌈

ClickUp comes with a drag-and-drop Calendar view that aids our granular task planning. We also make use of the Recurring Tasks feature to schedule routine stuff, like meetings and sprint retrospectives, and visualize or adjust our day-to-day directly on the Calendar.

At any given day, we have 100+ active tasks across departments, and it’s near impossible to follow up on each one of them. Thankfully, we can stay on top of our task lists with ClickUp Reminders . We create them from any task comment or notification, which gives us more flexibility to manage team tasks seamlessly from any device we’re on without losing sight of inter-departmental dependencies.

And, if we’re dealing with an overwhelming workload, we identify what to prioritize and deprioritize using ClickUp Task Priorities and its color-coded tags. We also lighten team workloads with ClickUp Automatons , which lets us automate time-consuming tasks like checking emails or organizing documents.

Bonus! Our secret to stress-free productivity? ClickUp Brain and pre-made templates

Beyond tracking and prioritizing tasks, ClickUp also lends us a hand with Project Management . For instance, we employ ClickUp Brain , the platform’s AI assistant, to automate project summaries, task planning, and task standups and updates.

ClickUp Brain is a neural network connecting the team’s tasks, documents, and discussions living on the platform—it helps us extract and summarize information and action items through simple prompts and questions.

We also take our productivity to new heights with numerous customizable ClickUp templates that help us standardize task assignments immediately! If you’re new to the platform, the ClickUp Task Management Template can be a great starting point. By downloading this free template , you can organize your tasks into Lists like Action Items , Ideas , and Backlog for easier navigation. Open separate views to track assignments by department or priority label. 🚩

ClickUp best features

• 1,000+ templates to kickstart skillful task management
• Intuitive task scheduling platform with time tracking
• ClickUp Dashboards for real-time task tracking and productivity metrics
• ClickUp Goals to set measurable task KPIs
• Task Checklist feature for easy to-do list creation
• Multiple project views like List, Table, and Timeline
• Custom task statuses to complement your workflow
• A Bulk Action Toolbar to edit multiple tasks at once
• Automates recurring, error-prone tasks
• Built-in task prioritization levels  
• Universal Search and Tags to access tasks quickly
• Supports task generation directly from ClickUp Docs and Whiteboards
• Integrates with 1,000+ apps like Slack, Gmail, Zoom, Outlook, and HubSpot
• Dedicated mobile app for iOS and Android
• Compatible with Mac, Windows, and Linux
• Built-in chat and file-sharing options for task collaboration
• Easy-to-use, no-code interface

ClickUp limitations

• It takes time to explore all its task management features (you can leverage the ClickUp Help Center to ease the learning curve)
• A dedicated subtask reporting feature would be a great add-on

ClickUp pricing

Most of ClickUp’s task management features are accessible on the free plan. The price-to-features ratio on the paid options is one of the best in this space.

• Free Forever (supports unlimited tasks and members)
• Unlimited: $7/month per user
• Business: $12/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing
• ClickUp AI: Add to any paid plan for $5 per member per month

*All listed prices refer to the yearly billing model

ClickUp ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (9,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (4,000+ reviews)

The platform has garnered largely positive reviews as a task management solution. Here’s how one user describes their experience :

My favorite feature is the ‘add to’ function for tasks, which enables me to have a central location for all major projects. Within the project/Epic, subtasks can be assigned to the correct space/list to be worked on by whoever needs it. Having a top-down view of the location and status of each subtask is invaluable to keeping track of what is completed and incomplete. Adding custom fields wherever I need them is also fantastic.

There’s no milder way to put it—we just love Asana as an online task management software for remote teams! For starters, we can use pre-built templates to organize our remote projects and coordinate on tasks and updates using the centralized Inbox feature.

As we tested the tool further, we noticed that it was incredibly easy to add and track cross-team tasks across multiple projects. Essentially, I can ensure the same task is never duplicated in another department, which is a common pain point for remote teams!

Its breadth of features is quite similar to ClickUp (you can check out a detailed ClickUp vs. Asana comparison here ). For instance, I can add task descriptions in the form of bulleted lists, embed files to add context, set due dates, and add assignees in a few clicks. It’s also effortless to create subtasks, identify blockers, and streamline approvals on task changes.

What makes Asana stand out among its alternatives for me is the Workflow Builder feature —it gives us a smooth interface to create workflows without coding, helping us automate routine tasks and expedite projects. This quality task management software also features a My Tasks list , which helps prioritize work by auto-promoting tasks based on due dates.

Overall, Asana is a collaborative task management tool for anyone working remotely —my distributed team was able to communicate directly within the app, encouraging cross-functional collaboration with minimal friction. For added transparency, we recommend adding relevant collaborators to your team’s tasks to keep them updated on progress async.

Asana best features

• Templates for task management
• Remote-friendly collaboration tools
• Zero-code workflow builder
• Search and filtering options for simpler navigation
• Integrates with apps like Slack and Dropbox, as well as ClickUp
• Mobile app for Android and iOS

Asana limitations

• May be challenging to implement for larger teams
• Storage and collaboration features could use improvement

Asana pricing

• Personal: Free forever (for up to 10 users)
• Starter: $10.99/month per user
• Advanced: $24.99/month per user

Asana ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (9,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (12,000+ reviews)

Many users have favorably reviewed Asana’s auto-reminders feature, like this one :

I like how Asana helps us to make and assign tasks to employees in our team, and also it auto gives them reminders to complete the tasks on time. Their reminder emails are very much helpful, this way our co-workers have the list of To-Do’s ready without checking multiple messaging platforms and emails.

When I first started exploring Jira, it was evident to me that this was not as beginner-friendly as other alternatives due to a somewhat complex feature set. But then, Jira is a popular task management software option among seasoned professionals in industries like IT, finance, marketing, and HR, so it was worth a try.

To give you some context, Jira was first launched by Atlassian as an issue-tracking tool for software developers—but has now branched out to become a useful tool for project managers and task managers alike. In my experience, I found it to be an incredibly handy tool for Agile project management .

My team tried to set up a sample workflow for a complex Agile project, and we were able to break everything into manageable sprints . We got the option to set up tasks under:

• Company-managed projects: A standard admin-controlled workflow
• Team-managed projects: A more self-contained workspace for independent teams

Jira’s multiple views, like boards and timelines, makes it easy to track sprint tasks and identify roadblocks to ensure continuous improvement . The tool also supports team collaboration by allowing members to brainstorm and exchange task information across departments through shared workflows.

Moving to productivity, it’s worth noting that Jira, like ClickUp , lets us update custom task statuses in real time, while its automaton feature allows for running manual actions in the background. Plus, project managers can automate work using its numerous task management templates . 😀

Tip: Explore the Jira-ClickUp integration to manage your Agile workflow better!

Jira best features

• Workflow automation support
• Multiple task views for agile teams
• Templates for niches like human resources , marketing, and IT
• Integrates with Atlassian Work Management and other popular apps
• Effective task management apps for Android and iOS

Jira limitations

• The system can be slow at times
• The user interface and dashboard design could be improved

Jira pricing

• Free: Up to 10 users
• Standard: $8.15/month per user
• Premium: $16/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing

Jira’s business support is only available on paid tiers. However, free plan users can seek out community support .

Jira ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (5,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (13,000+ reviews)

Bonus read: Check out these Jira alternatives !

Can using Monday.com for managing tasks can make Mondays less dreadful? We think yes! This simple task management software provides all key features, from multiple task views to task templates, that you’d find in most Monday alternatives .

However, what our research team loves the most is the software’s specific task management features for marketing and PMO teams . For example, marketing teams can benefit from key features like brand asset management , robust Gantt charts (to build task timelines), and campaign tracking . Meanwhile, PMO teams rely on features for monitoring OKRs , identifying dependencies, and tracking time for future task planning.

I think Monday.com also stands out with its smooth interface . Its Work Management feature lets you create no-code marketing workflows for specific functions like content creation, social media, and event planning.

I consulted a few project managers who use the tool, and they even appreciated its intuitive layout. For example, the platform allows them to make informed decisions by accessing quick overviews of task progress on a dashboard. 📈

Plus, Monday.com allows you to organize workspaces into projects with individual tasks and subtasks, complete with color-coding options to help you track task priorities and statuses easily.

Overall, it’s a powerful task management tool—quite similar to ClickUp and Asana in terms of design and feature set. Plus, the platform integrates with top marketing tools as well as other collaborative platforms ( including ClickUp ).

Monday.com best features

• Includes 200+ automation options
• Color-coded custom task statuses and priority levels
• User-friendly project templates
• No-code workflows setup
• Offers a mobile app for iOS and Android
• Integrates with over 200 apps

Monday.com limitations

• The initial setup tends to be overwhelming
• Some users struggle with custom reminders and experience delays in notifications

Monday.com pricing

You can access the following plans by first signing up for a 14-day free trial:

• Free: Up to two users
• Basic: $9/month per user
• Standard: $12/month per user
• Pro: $19/month per user

Monday.com ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (10,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)

I’m a religious fan of Kanban boards, which is partly why I always have a blast using Trello. One of the main reasons why I put it high up on our list is simplicity—most project management software are not as easy to learn as Trello, which makes it perfect for managing linear tasks on a smaller scale.

This good task management software is all about moving tasks like sticky notes on a drag-and-drop Kanban board for easier status tracking. Individuals can use it to create personalized task lists, while team members can rely on advanced checklists to add context to tasks by adding due dates and assignees. 

As far as basic task management is concerned, this software supports task prioritization through labels like high, medium, or low priority. Say I want to access a specific batch of tasks and prepare a quick status report—all I have to do is filter through these labels.

Trello’s no-code (and cute!) automation tool called Butler is also incredibly comfortable to use. Even the less tech-savvy members of my team can automate recurring tasks by creating simple rules, buttons, and commands.

Trello lets us view tasks on calendars, timelines, and neatly organized tables, which is often more than enough to manage workloads in smaller teams. However, if you’re running a larger team or a more complex project that requires agility and a wider variety of project views, Trello alternatives with enterprise features may be a better option.

Trello best features

• Butler—a no-code automation tool
• Kanban-based task tracking software
• Includes checklists, calendars, and timelines
• Color-coding helps prioritize tasks
• Android and iOS mobile apps
• Integrates with other task management systems like ClickUp and Jira

Trello limitations

• Gets costly as users increase in number
• May not support complex project management

Trello pricing

Trello’s free plan is pretty generous and supports up to 10 boards. You need to get a Premium tier to access more views and AI-driven features, which are necessary for effective task management in modern workspaces.

• Standard: $5/month per user
• Premium: $10/month per user
• Enterprise: $17.5/month per user

Trello ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (13,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (23,000+ reviews)

Here’s what one user had to say about completing tasks and projects with Trello:

Trello provides software development projects with a smooth platform for managing Agile and Kanban workflows. Tasks can be easily created and organized because of its user-friendly interface and customisable boards, lists, and cards. While Trello’s ease of use is one of its main advantages, it might not have all the complex project management capabilities of more all-inclusive applications. 

I had little idea of what Hive is like when I first started testing it. The platform advertises itself as an all-encompassing project management software with use cases ranging from project and resource management to client engagement. While I mostly explored features for task management, I can confidently say that this tool wins when it comes to facilitating team collaboration.

Hive provides any hybrid team with a task management platform to:

• Assign, track, and execute tasks together, regardless of location
• Monitor upcoming tasks across departments
• Streamline task intake data with forms
• Collaborate async or live with Hive Notes and Text and Voice Chat

Like ClickUp, Hive supports project collaboration by letting teammates communicate across projects by leaving comments on action cards or tagging team members.

Collaboration here is smoother because you get to observe your tasks from unique angles . For example, we can use the Portfolio view to get a detailed overview of tasks across projects or the Label view to categorize subtasks. I thought I could focus better by activating the My Actions view to display my task assignments in a concentrated way. 

We can also rely on key features like task status to easily track progress, templates to customize project layouts and business processes, and notifications to never miss a beat. Plus, Hive offers Workflows App —a no-code task automation tool to help you cut down on manual labor and design personalized automated workflows. 

Hive best features

• Collaborative task management tool
• Supports individual, group, or project discussions
• AI assistant ( HiveMind ) and templates to support standard tasks
• My Actions view tracks all the tasks assigned to you 
• Includes a no-code task automation tool
• Integrates with Dropbox and Google Drive

Hive limitations

• The mobile app has limited functionality
• UX may get compromised with many collaborators

Hive pricing

Hive’s free plan neatly supports basic task management for all your projects, but you’ll have to upgrade to paid plans for features like custom fields, task labels, and an in-app calendar.

• Starter: $5/month per user
• Teams: $12/month per user

Hive ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (500+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (100+ reviews)

Bonus: Check out these Hive alternatives !

Most alternatives to MeisterTask include Kanban boards as one of their key features. However, I’d emphasize that MeisterTask excels as Kanban-based task management software because of how user-friendly and intuitive it is. 😻

The tool is beautifully crafted and provides customizable Kanban-style boards that let us organize and monitor task cards. We can mark if tasks are In Progress , Done , or on the To Do list (or create custom sections). What’s cool is that we can also switch to a Gantt-like timeline view to access more linear scheduling.

These boards keep all work centralized and let us communicate effectively through task comments. We can mention teammates in the comments, add them as project watchers, and assign them tasks directly from the board. Whenever you manage projects prone to changes, just activate real-time notifications to keep everyone in the loop about the latest updates.

Besides collaborative boards, the software offers personal Kanban pinboards called Agendas , where we can organize all the tasks assigned to us, as well as access due dates and important files faster.

Many user reviews for MeisterTask compliment the tool’s pretty interface —here’s what a verified user shared:

The colorful Kanban-type interface, the multiple project lists you can have, tags, integration from MindMeister, easy integration from other websites to spawn tasks. I use it on my phone, tablet, and iPad.

MeisterTask best features

• Easy-to-use Kanban boards to track project progress
• Can serve as a personal task management software
• Task-related collaboration through comments
• Dashboards to track tasks, time-tracking data, and notifications
• Lets you automate recurring tasks
• iOS and Android mobile apps

MeisterTask limitations

• The software could benefit from adding a workflow calendar to its features
• Notifications may be delayed on mobile devices

MeisterTask pricing

• Basic: Free (doesn’t allow integration with other apps)
• Pro: $6.50/month per user

MeisterTask ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.6/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (1,000+ reviews)

nTask serves as an SMB-focused hub for tracking and scheduling tasks under three sections: To-Do, Workflow, and Projects . The idea is to create both personal and professional task lists, as well as define workflows for specific functions like designing, fund management, and freelancing. 

In my opinion, the Projects tab has quite a clutter-free interface to design granular schedules and assign tasks or entire task lists to your teammates. If you’re new to the platform, you can start with a weekly scheduling sheet to create a baseline of tasks, along with descriptions and assignees. Then, you can use the Task Builder to add tasks as needed.

As a visual task management tool, my team was able to use nTask to plan and prioritize tasks on a Kanban layout, manage interconnected delivery timelines, and visualize projects with color-coded Gantt charts.

For example, we scheduled tasks by setting planned and actual due dates and creating task dependencies and milestones to ensure timely completion. Then, we set priorities, custom statuses, and real-time notifications to ensure no action remains overlooked.

nTask’s robust time-tracking capabilities help us stay within realistic timeframes. I can monitor time spent on tasks and estimate the time my team will need for future tasks, which makes scheduling (and invoicing) easier over time.

nTask best features

• Offers multiple project views (board, grid, list, and calendar)
• Comprehensive task tracking
• Visual task management and task scheduling through Gantt charts
• Recurring tasks feature with daily, weekly, or monthly repeats
• Integrates with 1,000+ tools like Apple Calendar, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams
• Android and iOS support

nTask limitations

• Attaching documents and images to tasks may be challenging
• User interface could be more intuitive

nTask pricing

You can access a 7-day trial period for all plans. NGOs may be able to get up to 50% off upon contacting sales.

• Premium: $3/month per user
• Business: $8/month per user

nTask ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (10+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)

ZenHub is a project management solution that primarily caters to software development teams. It provides a native GitHub integration via a browser extension for Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. This helps reduce context switching by keeping project tasks connected with GitHub code. 

Plus, ZenHub offers automatic task updates as users complete issues in GitHub, streamlining task completion by eliminating manual status check-ins from your team’s to-do list. There are also automated hand-offs to update all connected workspaces.

This online task management software and software development tool brings tasks together on intuitive, drag-and-drop Kanban boards , allowing teams to view all current tasks and their statuses.

Use these boards to prioritize tasks, track projects, and attach pull requests to corresponding issues. Group related issues into Epics or connect various private and public GitHub repos to a single board. 👨‍🏫

Additionally, ZenHub offers sprint planning features, making it a handy tool for agile teams . It lets us set automated sprint cycles, auto-generate new sprints with prioritized and unfinished tasks, and receive periodical reports on progress.

I’ve also heard pretty exciting things about ZenHub AI (automatic issue categorization, sprint reviews, etc.). However, I wasn’t able to get past the waitlist to try out its beta program.

ZenHub best features

• Various key features for agile teams
• Native GitHub integration
• Provides spring planning and tracking
• Boards with intuitive task management capabilities
• Automate repetitive tasks and hand-offs
• Acts as a visual task management tool with roadmaps and timelines
• Integrates with Figma, Miro, and Loom

ZenHub limitations

• Steep learning curve
• The interface may be challenging to navigate

ZenHub pricing

• For Teams: $8.33/month per user (annual billing after a 14-day free trial)
• For Enterprises: Contact sales for pricing

ZenHub ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (30+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (30+ reviews)

Zoho Projects is a reliable project management software with features such as issue tracking, team monitoring , project timesheets, and resource utilization charts. From the range of use cases we explored, this platform can be excellent for managing complex projects in industries like marketing, construction, IT, and consulting.

Zoho Projects offers a comprehensive toolset for task management that assists us in breaking projects down into milestones, task lists, and subtasks for simpler tracking. This task management platform is all about details—each task can have attributes like assignees, work hours, priorities, and reminders. Plus, we can use timesheets and timers to record time spent on each task.

We were able to schedule tasks on a calendar and get an overview of team members’ capacity simultaneously. This, I think, is crucial for balanced task planning and avoiding the risk of team burnout.

Like many Zoho alternatives , this tool simplifies task organization by providing Kanban-style boards with drag-and-drop task cards and flexible statuses. As for planning and tracking complex workflows, we can use Gantt charts to identify granular team tasks, set dependencies, and monitor deadlines to ensure everything is done on time. ⌛

I believe that using Zoho Projects is great for consolidating your task ecosystem when you use other Zoho applications, such as Zoho Mail or Zoho CRM, as the tool gives you a unified view of your tasks across sister platforms.

Zoho Projects best features

• Quick-access Gantt charts
• Supports versatile task management use cases
• Highly customizable workflows with project templates
• Easy task scheduling on calendars
• Integrates with various Zoho, Google, and Microsoft apps 
• Task management apps (iOS 9.0+ and Android 4.1+)

Zoho Projects limitations

• Initial setup may be challenging
• Software customization can be time-consuming 

Zoho Projects pricing

• Free: Up to three users
• Premium: $4/month per user (10-day trial)
• Enterprise: $9/month per user (10-day trial)

Zoho Projects ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.3/5 (300+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (400+ reviews)

Reviews mostly mention the product to be useful, albeit confusing at times. Here’s an excerpt :

Zoho Projects is useful when using to assign tasks, getting multiple projects done, and needing to know who will do it by when. It allows people to go in and time themselves to track how long it took them to do it. It does get really confusing at times to create tasks because of the many tedious needs that can be miscommunicated while trying to assign (tasks). 

ActiveCollab is all about increasing productivity and meeting deadlines with ease in client-based workflows. Whether you’re a startup or a small creative team, the tool lets you invite unlimited clients to the platform for improved collaboration and feedback loops. In my opinion, this alone can help eliminate those hard-to-keep-track-of client meetings and follow-up email chains.

My experience? Besides adding tasks for my team, I was also able to break down complex actions into subtasks for my clients, ensuring all assigned tasks got done as planned. Additionally, we saw functions to:

• Add due dates, assignees, and detailed task descriptions
• Group tasks based on different criteria
• Duplicate repetitive tasks

This online task management software offers only three project views to choose from, which is less than what ActiveCollab alternatives typically offer. Still, it includes frequently used views—the Kanban board, Gantt chart, and List view. 📝

I know automation is a recurring theme at this point, but still worth a mention—ActiveCollab can reduce manual labor by automating recurring tasks like drafting weekly reports. And, if you need to ensure actions are completed in a fixed order, just create dependencies between multiple tasks.

ActiveCollab stresses the importance of a personal task manager, which freelancers may find useful. It provides a My Work page where you can find and organize your task assignments by project, client, or due date. 

ActiveCollab’s timesheets also impress me quite a bit. Besides getting an overview of all my time records, I can access project-level time tracking for easier billing. I can even revisit my productivity in terms of the comments posted, tasks created or closed, or due dates modified.

ActiveCollab best features

• Excellent personal task management software
• Tools to automate repetitive tasks
• Dependencies for completing tasks in a specific order
• Android and iOS smartphone apps
• Integrates with other task management tools like Asana and Trello

ActiveCollab limitations

• The file-sharing feature of this task management software could be simpler to use
• Adding more customization options could be beneficial 

ActiveCollab pricing

All plans come with a 14-day free trial. However, you have to subscribe to the most expensive plan for features like workload management and days-off planning.

• Plus: $9.5/month 3 users/month
• Pro: $8/month per user/month
• Pro+Get Paid: $11.75/month per user

ActiveCollab ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (90+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (300+ reviews)

Wrike is well-known for its robust task and workflow management features. But what many users miss is how beautifully scalable it is! For instance, the platform lets me build a library of custom tasks that mimics our core processes—we can use it as a baseline for all our future workflows. And the best part is, we can expand this library to build a workspace tailored to a role, department, or even industry.

During the time we tested this tool, we created multi-level task lists across levels like folders, milestones, phases, and projects. Some of us even created personalized dashboards by pinning important tasks from our to-do list, all automatically sorted by priority and due date.

Like most of Wrike’s competitors , the platform supports strong teamwork —we can collaborate on real-time project plans, task assignments, and decision-making within the platform. Plus, the software includes built-in proofing tools for quick yet detailed task feedback and task automation to save time and increase work efficiency.

Additionally, Wrike allows project managers to build customizable reports on task and team performance. I was, for instance, able to further optimize workflows by analyzing relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) on dashboards.

Wrike best features

• Comprehensive project dashboards with personalized reports
• Supports feedback-friendly team collaboration
• Multiple project views
• Visualize tasks in views like Gantt Chart, Kanban, and Calendar
• 400+ third-party integrations
• Task automation

Wrike limitations

• Could use more custom display options
• Some users experience task syncing issues

Wrike pricing

Wrike offers integrations and additional cloud security features for an extra fee, but all of the following plans contain task management features:

• Team: $9.80/month per user
• Business: $24.80/month per user
• Enterprise and Pinnacle: Contact sales

Wrike ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (3,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (2,000+ reviews)

While many Todoist alternatives on our list offer additional project management features, this veteran app is purely focused on task management. I think Todoist is one of the few apps that consistently upgrades itself within its niche space. For instance, we can now create detailed daily to-do lists and set recurring tasks using natural language.

The tool ticks all the boxes for basic task planning and management—we can create tasks and subtasks, determine priorities, add due dates, and set reminders to ensure nothing goes overlooked. 👀

Although it’s primarily a task management app, Todoist can help you manage small-scale projects as it includes goal-setting features , labels to categorize tasks, and task descriptions to keep information centralized.

I personally loved its Upcoming calendar view —it displays which tasks are due urgently, and if anything’s too demanding, I can use a drag-and-drop function to reschedule assignments. And if I need to focus on team tasks that are currently due, I simply go to the Today view .

While Todoist’s simple navigation and low price make it a handy tool for personal task management, it’s also a good to-do list app for teams on a tight budget . Its project management features aren’t too comprehensive, but you can still assign tasks and leverage comments for better teamwork and transparency. Here’s what a small business owner had to share after using the tool :

Extremely easy to use for all levels of technological understanding. I use Todoist several times a day and we have integrated this across our whole team. We’ve experienced far less chance of tasks being lost or forgotten and people stay accountable because of the notifications received upon completion.

Tip: ClickUp has a neat Import from Todoist feature if you need to switch to a more extensive project management tool in the future.

Todoist best features

• Efficient daily task management
• Multiple task views (including Kanban boards and lists)
• Basic team collaboration support
• Easy navigation to monitor project progress
• Integrates with various productivity and time-tracking apps
• Has a to-do list app for Android and iOS

Todoist limitations

• Integrating the software with some apps may be challenging
• It would be beneficial if the app displayed tasks when you’re offline

Todoist pricing

• Beginner: Free
• Pro: $4/month per user
• Business: $6/month per user

Todoist ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (700+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (2,000+ reviews)

Besides being a good task management tool, ProofHub is a task tracking software that lets you easily create task lists and individual tasks, assign them to more than one team member, and closely follow due dates and priorities across task categories . I am particularly in awe of the platform’s Table view for task tracking—I get to monitor progress percentages for actions in different categories (without being a pesky micromanager). 😁

Similar to ProofHub alternatives , the software is fully customizable —we can build personalized workflows and use custom fields to capture any task-related data my team deems important. Custom fields enhance task tracking —because we customize them to track virtually any detail, be it deadlines or output.

Speaking of tracking, ProofHub has an intuitive interface for creating task dependencies for ensuring tasks are completed in a predetermined order. If you want to offer more clarity to assignees, leave comments on tasks or use mentions to guide them.

Additionally, ProofHub offers various reporting options to help gain insight into a project’s progress. You can enhance resource allocation by analyzing resource utilization reports or track project-specific progress with task completion reports.

ProofHub best features

• Multi-faceted task tracking software
• Customizable workflows
• Supports task-related discussions through comments and mentions
• Reports to gauge task progress
• Various project views like Kanbans and tables
• Mobile-friendly

ProofHub limitations

• Notifications can get difficult to manage
• Some users find its customization features complex

ProofHub pricing

Note that ProofHub currently avoids the per-user billing format, which may make it appealing for some teams.

• Essential: $45/month for unlimited users
• Ultimate Control: $150/month (or $89/month for a limited time offer)

ProofHub ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (80+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (90+ reviews)

SmartTask includes all key features you’d typically find in a task management tool. You can set deadlines, add dependencies, and manage tasks in views like calendar, list, and board. I’d highlight that you can create a realistic workflow here by optimizing dependent, overlapping, and ignored tasks—this is the kind of visibility you need when your team is juggling 5+ projects simultaneously.

This software stands out for me especially because of its tools for managing multiple projects simultaneously in a cross-functional setup. Its Project Portfolios feature allows you to create multiple boards to track separate goals, aligning your marketing, sales, and design teams. To play it safer, you can even share task lists across teams to prevent orphaned actions. 

SmartTask supports team collaboration by letting us comment on tasks and generate real-time notifications for updates. We can also invite clients, vendors, and external stakeholders to collaborate on any task or project by sending them an invitation.

Plus, it provides dashboard reports on both project tasks and sales that you can easily find through its advanced search bar. 🔎

SmartTask best features

• Internal and external team communication
• Set recurring tasks (daily, weekly, or monthly)
• Task and sales reports
• Supports managing tasks across projects
• Time tracking for individual tasks
• Task management tools for iOS and Android

SmartTask limitations

• The UI and UX could use some improvement
• Adding more integrations would be useful

SmartTask pricing

SmartTask may offer discounted pricing to NGOs upon contact. Eligible startups can also apply for a $1,000 worth of credit.

• Free Forever
• Premium: $7.99/month per user
• Business: $10.99/month per user

SmartTask ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.5/5 (60+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/5 (30+ reviews)

I’ll admit that HubSpot Task Management is far from a traditional task manager—it’s more of a suite designed to help marketers streamline Customer Relationship Management (CRM) processes. Now, we know that effective CRM depends on properly storing, tracking, and managing lead- and customer-based activities. HubSpot helps you streamline these scattered tasks to boost revenue.

We explored this software extensively and can confirm that it reduces the need to switch between multiple tabs when talking to prospects, all thanks to dashboards that centralize all CRM work. In terms of use cases, utilize the dashboards to track your to-do list items, view prospect details, and stay on top of meetings. 

Need to create new tasks? Do that directly from your workflows, email inbox, or to-do list. And if you need insights from past task performances, like deals made and activities completed, leverage HubSpot’s reporting tools. This platform simplifies communication with email templates (for sending messages in bulk) and real-time team chat. 

While sales and marketing teams may enjoy HubSpot’s task management style, some of HubSpot’s alternatives could be a better choice for companies in IT or finance. You can even consider the HubSpot-ClickUp integration if you want to organize your customer-facing processes more diligently.

HubSpot best features

• A wide array of CRM functionalities
• Live team chats
• Dashboards to centralize prospect-related work
• Integrates with apps like WordPress, Gmail, and Zapier
• iOS and Android mobile app for HubSpot CRM

HubSpot limitations

• Limited option to prioritize tasks
• Workflow automation is limited on the free plan

HubSpot pricing

For individuals and small teams:

• Starter: $15/month
• Professional: $800/month

HubSpot (CRM) ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (11,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (4,000+ reviews)

Paymo is a simple task management software and invoicing app rolled into one, so I can see how it holds enormous appeal for professionals and freelancers who want to manage client work, time tracking data, and resources within one platform . It lets you automatically set up ghost bookings based on the task details you’ve entered in the past, as well as receive a visual overview of all bookings for the immediate team on a single screen. 🖥️

Paymo also simplifies managing resources by allowing multiple managers to work on scheduling to avoid overbooking or underbooking. We can:

• Book time for time-sensitive tasks by the hour
• Accommodate unscheduled tasks with a simple drag-and-drop function
• Visualize our team’s availability on timelines
• Send booking notifications only to relevant team members

The platform lets my employees view their tasks in a single view, while our task managers monitor both their personal tasks and team’s work in separate views. Like with most Paymo alternatives , we get project views like Gantt charts, Tables, and Calendars to visualize tasks.

Paymo also encourages team collaboration, offering a detailed Task View to chat in real time about the latest task updates. Finally, Paymo provides task priority levels like critical, high, normal, or low across teams, which we can adjust based on our delivery commitment to clients.

Paymo best features

• Timelines to assess employee availability
• Allows booking time for client tasks by the hour
• Real-time chat
• Project views like Gantt chart and Kanban board
• Integrates with apps like Slack, Google Calendar, and JotForm
• Mobile app support for iOS and Android

Paymo limitations

• The mobile app may be tricky to navigate
• Takes time to train employees to use the platform

Paymo pricing

• Free (for up to five clients)
• Starter: $5.9/month per user
• Small Office: $10.9/month per user
• Business: $16.9/month per user

Paymo ratings and reviews

• Capterra: 4.8/5 (400+ reviews)

I have talked to many freelancers about their task management routines, and I think one of their main problem areas is connecting tasks to tracked hours and, eventually, invoices. That’s precisely why I made sure this handy all-in-one tool was on our list.

While most TimeCamp alternatives on this list include typical task and project management features, TimeCamp shifts its focus to time-task budgeting instead.

With its one-click time-tracking capabilities , you can track your or your team’s working hours effortlessly. You can use this data to standardize times for specific jobs, plan and create task assignments and invoice estimates, and monitor each team member’s productivity.

TimeCamp also provides features for measuring the profitability of your projects and tracking billable hours, streamlining invoicing and resource management. Basically, the tasks you had to do manually, like creating invoices and approving timesheets, are automated on this platform.

Although this software highlights time tracking, it’s still a task management tool. Its TimeCamp Planner product helps you organize tasks and monitor their progress on Kanban-style boards. 

If you’re dealing with repeatable tasks, automate them by specifying information like due dates, assignees, and progress statuses. Plus, you can switch from team task overview to your own using the My Tasks feature , which displays your assigned tasks on a list, calendar, or timeline view.

Note that TimeCamp’s time tracking and task management features are available on separate pricing plans .

TimeCamp best features

• Comprehensive time-tracking tools
• Kanban board for easy task tracking
• Personal task lists
• Can automate repeatable tasks
• Includes apps for Android and iOS
• ClickUp (you can use this integration to time your ClickUp tasks and enjoy billing accuracy)
• Google Calendar

TimeCamp limitations

• The user interface and server load time could be better
• The tool may be buggy at times

TimeCamp pricing (for TimeCamp Planner)

• Starter: $2.99/month per user (best for freelancers)
• Premium: $4.99/month per user (ideal for businesses tracking profitability)
• Ultimate: $7.99/month per user (for better analytical reporting)
• Enterprise: $11.99/month per user (for higher security and custom integrations)

TimeCamp ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.7/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (500+ reviews)

Any.do specializes in providing easy-to-use to-do lists to help you achieve both personal or professional goals efficiently. It caters to individuals, families, and teams, and is available via 10+ platforms, including Mac, Safari, and iPad.

During my time with this tool, I was able to organize my to-dos in separate lists and projects, all color-coded to set clear priorities and determine task categories. We can enhance our task lists with:

• Subtasks and attachments for added task awareness
• Deadlines and reminders

Sharing responsibilities is also simple—just share a task list with your teammates or family to collaborate on task completion . For example, you can assign different items on a grocery list to family members and track the list to ensure they complete the task successfully. If there’s an urgent matter you wish to discuss, use the chat function to communicate in real time.  

For companies looking for a task management tool with project management capabilities, Any.do is a solid choice as it also offers features like customizable workflows, views, pre-made templates, and powerful integrations with other work tools.

If you want more comprehensive workflow features, though, explore some more advanced Any.do alternatives .

Any.do best features

• Provides simple to-do lists
• Great as a daily task manager
• Lets you share lists with teams, family, and friends
• Reminders for timely task completion
• Has apps for iOS and Android
• Integrates with other task management tools like ClickUp and Asana (via Zapier)

Any.do limitations

• Some users desire more integrations (like with Microsoft Calendar)
• Limited advanced features for this price range

Any.do pricing

Remember to get a Family or Teams plan to access shared lists.

• Premium: $2.99/month per user
• Family: $8.33/month per four users
• Teams: $4.99/month per user

*All listed prices refer to approx values billed annually

Any.do ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.2/5 (100+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (100+ reviews)

At the time of reviewing this tool, we noted a few less-than-positive reviews by Android and iOS users, mostly about some UX elements. However, the reviews for the overall functionalities are quite positive. Here’s what a sales manager who uses the product had to say :

With Any.do, organizing my tasks is simple and fast. The app works fine, and it does the job that it’s supposed to do, setting daily reminders and scheduling to keep myself on track of what’s going on. I love apps that offer a simple, minimalistic professional design.

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like task management tool . It’s great for those who are comfortable tracking tasks in Excel but are open to switching to a tool with less complicated calculation work. The tool is popular in construction, healthcare, and education industries where task management is all about working with scattered data.

Like ClickUp, Smartsheet offers comprehensive project and task management tools for handling different workflows. For example, it lets you schedule tasks, create subtasks, allocate resources, and track assignments efficiently from one platform. ✅

Here, tasks are represented on spreadsheets for individual projects. Like most Smartsheet alternatives , we can add basic task information, like due dates and assignees, in clear fields and columns. We can also merge several spreadsheets to have a consolidated view of our tasks across categories.

However, these aren’t traditional spreadsheets—they also provide the advanced features of a modern task management tool. For instance, we can use checkboxes, dropdown lists, and comments to interact with tasks on Smartsheet.

This is a great task management software for teams working on extensive projects as it includes templates for agile project management, OKR tracking, budgeting, and resource management.

It also supports task automation, real-time collaboration , and advanced analytics. Plus, it integrates with services we may already use, like Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams.

Bonus read: Explore ClickUp vs. Smartsheet !

Smartsheet best features

• Spreadsheet-based project management tool
• Advanced functionalities for monitoring complex projects
• Supports real-time team communication
• Templates for agile project management
• Integrates with numerous communication, data visualization, and project delivery apps
• Available as an iOS or Android mobile app

Smartsheet limitations

• There may be a steep learning curve for users figuring out advanced features
• It could benefit from adding more template options

Smartsheet pricing

• Free (for up to two task editors)
• Pro: $7/month per user
• Business: $25/month per user

Smartsheet ratings and reviews

• G2: 4.4/5 (14,000+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.5/5 (3,000+ reviews)

Our first-hand experience with these tools has been both adventurous and enlightening. We think each of these options understands their target users and strives to deliver. However, if you’re still struggling to find “the one,” make a list of what you really prioritize in a task management platform.

Typically, great task management software provides features that help you plan, organize, track, and assign tasks, but you shouldn’t have to pay a fortune for these functions. Some features, like reminders, automation, and task views, are the bare minimum, and we see them in almost every tool we discussed.

What you can explore is the overall functionalities you get for a given price. Say Tool A gives you 30 advanced features and the more popular Tool B gives you 25 advanced features at the same price point—you know what to pick!

Lastly, the best task management tools are supposed to make your life easier, not vice versa, so ensure your chosen tool is easy to implement and fun to work with! 🥳

If you absolutely can’t make a choice, we’ll be cheeky and persuade you to try ClickUp ! It’s got all the features you’ll need to streamline task management with minimal effort. Whether you want to set goals, track and assign tasks, manage time, reduce manual labor, or communicate with your team, the possibilities are endless.

Sign up to ClickUp today and enjoy the best toolkit a free task management software has to offer! 💖

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