Stevenson W. Production/Operations Management

Irwin; Fifth Edition edition, 1996. — 897 p.The material in this book is intended as an introduction to the field of production and operations management. It is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate students. The field of production and operations management is dynamic, and very much a part of many of the good things that are happening in business organizations. The book is intended to be interesting and informative. Much of what you learn will have practical application.The subject matter represents a blend of concepts from industrial engineering, cost accounting, general management, quantitative methods, and statistics. Production and operations activities, such as forecasting, choosing a location for an office or plant, allocating resources, designing products and services, scheduling activities, and assuring quality are core activities of most business organizations. Some of you are or will be employed directly in these areas, while others will have jobs that are indirectly related to this area. So whether this is your field of study or not, knowledge of this field will most certainly benefit you and the organization you work for.The text contains more material than one could normally hope to cover in a one-semester course. Rather than rely on the author’s personal bias, each instructor can choose those topics most suited to his or her own proclivities. Those who prefer quantitative emphasis, for example, will be quite comfortable with the abundance of student problems. Those who prefer a more qualitative approach will welcome the tact that some of the more quantitative material is placed in chapter supplements. Moreover, some of the chapter problems are less quantitative than others, and the cases and readings tend to be qualitative. Obviously, there are many possibilities between these two extremes.