Businesses regardless of their type (private, government, not-for-profit), size or financial position they all consist of three basic functions that run the business. Those three functions are operations, finance and marketing. Whether the business type is manufacturing, retail, hospital or others, whether the business size is small, medium or enterprise, whether the business financial position is different they all have these three basic functions.
The 3 basics decline in : Human Ressources, Sales and Marketing,Research&Development, Production/Operations, Customer Service, Finance and Accounts, Administration and IT.
All organizations have operations that produce some mix of services and products. Operations is the set of activities dedicated to value added conversion of inputs (labour, material, energy, capital, knowledge, etc ..) into timely outputs (products and services) at competitive cost, volume and quality levels to satisfy customers demand thru the multiple interrelated processes included within the global supply chain.
Goods are something tangible (physical) which created form raw materials and parts such as motherboard that is part of the computers, as well as phone and, cars and TV.
Services are something intangible (not physical) that provide some sort of psychological value or mixture of time or location value such as education and healthcare.
There are so many examples of goods and services that surround our day to day life that remind us about operations function, every time we use the phone to call someone, read a book, or watch a video it remind us about operations function of one or more of firms.
The aim of the business is to equalize between the supply of the materials and achieving the customer demand. Having a lot of the supply consider a waste for the firm resources and having a little of the supply might lead into customer dissatisfaction.
The business through the operations function needs to manage and control the supply chains, work with sales and marketing to make sure they meet the customer demand. Although the operations function is accountable for producing goods and services, the operations function needs the help and support from other parts or function areas of the organization such as finance and marketing.
Course objectives
The module aims to provide students with in depth understanding of concepts and principles and sufficient mastery of Operations Management concepts to sustain their managerial behaviour and delivery. Develop students attitude in leading innovative, entrepreneurial and change projects to improve economics and quality performances of operations targeted areas and contribute to improved alignment with company global strategy Students will acquire the essential of a pragmatic and duplicable approach of Operations Management as well as the need to cooperate with other business functions to assure effective organisational performance :

• It aspires to give them a long-awaited coherent approach which can assist to address conflicts and trade-offs about customers' expectations and organization capabilities.
• This course intends to provide participants with the basics of an understanding of principles, tools and main elements to apply in their own business environment. More specifically: Apprehend and identify all aspects of operations management related issues, and define appropriate actions plans
• Build students skills to realistically prioritize operational issues within a complex and global environment
• Build students ability to work on operations issues within a collaborative and multicultural team approach

Expected learning outcomes By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Describe the interdependency of operations related issues, through analysis and tools application
• Evaluate critically the organization's capability by using appraisal and auditing methodology, in terms of resources and skills 
• Identify and demonstrate facility in managing improvement and innovative projects through appropriate trade-offs evaluation
• Interpret findings and draw appropriate conclusions