Operation Management x Project Management

In this episode, Ricardo explains the differences between project and production/operations management, giving characteristics and examples of both areas.

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Episode transcript

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the five minutes BM pocket. Yes. Today. I like to talk to you about operations management and mostly I want to compare operations management with project management. And in order to do that, the first thing that we'll say do I would remove the word Management and I we'll talk operations and projects have a lot of similarities, but they are quite different operations. It's everything you do that has no specific end date you do.

And you repeat that thing until your desired or until it makes business sense for your company on for years or for yourself, a project has a life cycle project. The first thing you start you will do, you know, that may be in a week, maybe a in a month may be in the near may be in five years, it will come to an end. So Project is a temporary operation is a permanent. I'm not seeing a permanent.

It does not have an end date, but it does not have any specific end date. The end date is a consequence. If I can say that the consequence off a business change or something like that, do you need to think we need to understand is that operations is big for me. He is he a routine work? He is a work most of the time doing by repetition or by machines, or you repeat things on the Project, there is this unique product of service characteristic.

So I need to understand that one. I'm repeating the other one. I am innovating. I'm creating something like that. You should do a very, very simple example. Let's suppose that I, I have a place that sells sandwich operations is every customer that comes an order, a sense of the rich. So I need to prepare it, or I need to have a stock of sandwich. So I have a process to make my burger, right. I grill, I put the cheese, I opened the bread. I put the meat and the cheese inside the bread.

I put one slice off a ladder. I put it in the back and then I deliver it to the client, right? This is operations. What does a project is when I sit and I start thinking, which kind of new sandwich can I develop that will attract more vegetarian clients or more, whatever, more meat lovers kind of client that might develop that. And did they, that profit is done and what it means its in production, then the project is done.

So it's very important because of course some of the tools and techniques are the same let's suppose resource leveling. You can level and balance resources in Operation Management and you can level and balance resource on project management. The technique is pretty much the same. You do budgeting on the operation's. You do the budget on the Project, but you need to understand that that end goal is a different operations.

I want to make sure that I have a constant flow of production that I do not have work in progress that I deliver better project management. I want to deliver when product or service and this product or service or this production line that I'm developing will be turning into production in some way. Now, for example, its a big trend of using operations management techniques like Kanban. And this is in project management. This is fantastic, but we need always to keep in mind, what is the end goal?

The end goal off the project is to deliver and through an innovation process, something operations management, each to create a much more stable environment where I want to save by repeating or to save by reducing work in progress, et cetera. So it's very important that I understand because they are brother and sister, but not necessarily siblings. So you need to understand this difference so you can understand that. And when your work is a project related work and when your Operation is an Operation Management worth.

Think about that and see you next week with another five minutes PM. Podcast.

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