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12
Part One
Introduction
different. The motor vehicle plant contains metal-forming machinery and assembly processes,
whereas the hospital contains diagnostic, care and therapeutic processes. Perhaps the most
important difference between the two operations, however, is the nature of their inputs.
The vehicle plant transforms steel, plastic, cloth, tyres and other materials into vehicles. The
hospital transforms the customers themselves. The patients form part of the input to, and
the output from, the operation. This has important implications for how the operation needs
to be managed.
Transformed resources
Material inputs
Customer inputs
Information inputs
Inputs to the process
One set of inputs to any operation’s processes are transformed resources. These are the resources
that are treated, transformed or converted in the process. They are usually a mixture of the
following:
● Materials – operations which process materials could do so to transform their physical
properties (shape or composition, for example). Most manufacturing operations are like this.
Other operations process materials to change their location (parcel delivery companies,
for example). Some, like retail operations, do so to change the possession of the materials.
Finally, some operations store materials, such as in warehouses.
● Information – operations which process information could do so to transform their
informational properties (that is the purpose or form of the information); accountants do
this. Some change the possession of the information, for example market research companies
sell information. Some store the information, for example archives and libraries.
Finally, some operations, such as telecommunication companies, change the location of
the information.
● Customers – operations which process customers might change their physical properties
in a similar way to materials processors: for example, hairdressers or cosmetic surgeons.
Some store (or more politely accommodate) customers: hotels, for example. Airlines, mass
rapid transport systems and bus companies transform the location of their customers,
while hospitals transform their physiological state. Some are concerned with transforming
their psychological state, for example most entertainment services such as music, theatre,
television, radio and theme parks.
Often one of these is dominant in an operation. For example, a bank devotes part of
its energies to producing printed statements of accounts for its customers. In doing so, it
is processing inputs of material but no one would claim that a bank is a printer. The bank is
also concerned with processing inputs of customers. It gives them advice regarding their
financial affairs, cashes their cheques, deposits their cash, and has direct contact with them.
However, most of the bank’s activities are concerned with processing inputs of information
about its customers’ financial affairs. As customers, we may be unhappy with badly printed
statements and we may be unhappy if we are not treated appropriately in the bank. But if
the bank makes errors in our financial transactions, we suffer in a far more fundamental way.
Table 1.3 gives examples of operations with their dominant transformed resources.
Table 1.3 Dominant transformed resource inputs of various operations
Predominantly processing
inputs of materials
All manufacturing operations
Mining companies
Retail operations
Warehouses
Postal services
Container shipping line
Trucking companies
Predominantly processing
inputs of information
Accountants
Bank headquarters
Market research company
Financial analysts
News service
University research unit
Telecoms company
Predominantly processing
inputs of customers
Hairdressers
Hotels
Hospitals
Mass rapid transport
Theatres
Theme parks
Dentists