ABSTRACT
People matter. This apparently obvious statement underpins one of the key lessons which strategic operations management has learned over the years. Think about any aspect of operations in a public or private sector organization – and imagine the influence people have on its success or failure. We may have sophisticated computer-based systems for managing
the stocks and flows of materials and activities across our organizations – but they depend on individual operators putting in the right data at the right time. ‘Lean’ thinking has revolutionized productivity in all sorts of settings, much of it coming through using the ideas and experience of the people closest to operational tasks developing ways of doing them better. But this doesn’t happen by accident – it all depends on them being trained, feeling empowered, and actually motivated to contribute their ideas.
