ABSTRACT
This chapter is in part intended to highlight some of the key issues developed elsewhere in the book, and in part to look forward to further development and/or study of operations management. It is, therefore, somewhat eclectic. The chapter is mainly concerned with the strategic nature and importance of operations, and develops this through a brief discussion of some of the more important current issues in the subject:
1 The operations environment. An overview of material already covered, looking at issues of organizational competition, survival and success and the contribution which operations has to make in achieving this.
