Operations Management Research Group (main work address Leuven)

Operations management Mission statement and study domain   In accordance with the mission statement of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Department of Applied Economics, the mission of the research group Operations Management involves the delivery of academic education, the performance of fundamental research and the delivery of services in the domain of operations management. Operations management can be generally described as the management of the resources that are needed for the production of goods and services provided by the organisation. The production of goods and services occurs through a transformation process that transforms various inputs (raw materials, components, partly finished products, information, customers, facilities, equipment, technology, human resources) in desired outputs (goods and services). The operations management function holds the primal responsibility for the production of goods and services  the fundamental raison d'être of an organisation. As such it is the integrating link between various other functions such as management strategy, product and service development, engineering, procurement, marketing, human resource management, accounting, finance,   The study domain of the operations management group is very diverse:  1. the development of an operations management strategy providing the supporting and implementation base of and the driving force behind the corporate strategy;  2.  the design of products and services (product design), the transformation process (process design),  the network of operations (supply network, location, capacity setting, distribution chain); 3. the design and management of  the lay-out (facilities design, facilities layout) of the production and service areas, the warehouses, the material flow and the materials handling system;  4. the selection, implementation and management of the process technology, the automation, the information network;  5. job design and work organisation; 6. planning and control : demand management, aggregate planning, master production planning and scheduling, capacity management, inventory management, supply network management, external distribution and logistics, production planning and control (MRP, ERP, APS, JIT, TOC, ...),  project planning, shop floor control, finite capacity scheduling and sequencing; 7. quality management; 8. maintenance management; 9. management of the enterprise environment (safety, environmental issues ); 10.  integration: integration and fine tuning of the operations in the global logistics network.