What Is Manufacturing Operations Management?

There are many different definitions floating around the industry for Manufacturing Operations Management. This is an area that we will be conducting multiple research projects in for 2012, so we thought it would be worthwhile to start the year off by defining what we mean when we write about Manufacturing Operations Management.

The Purdue Model

A good place to start when looking for a widely adopted and understood definition for Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) is the Purdue Industrial Engineering Department. In the late 1980's Purdue created one of the first functional activity models for business processes and enabling technology for plant operations. This original document is still available for download here. It is called the Purdue Reference Model for CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) and includes the often referenced "Layers 0 - 4 " model of technology and business process for a manufacturing enterprise.

Over time, many technology, research, best practices, industry, and standards organizations have picked up where Purdue left off and developed models incorporating many of these early concepts. Two of the most important groups in this area include: MESA and ISA. Both of these groups have been instrumental in the development and adoption of industry standards in the area of Manufacturing Operations Management.

Moving to an Industry Standard

One of the most important standards is ISA-95. Essentially, the ISA-95 standard includes models, terminology, and the markup language for integrating business systems and manufacturing systems. At the highest level these activities are broken down into Layers 4-0.

In addition, the standard is made up of 5 different parts. Part 3 is of particular interest and focuses on the activity model for Manufacturing Operations Management. The 4 four main activity areas include:

• Maintenance
• Production
• Quality
• Inventory

Diving down to the next layer of detail, each of these areas have their own activity model. An example of the production activity model can be seen here:

Defining Manufacturing Operations Management

In summary, it is these four sets of business processes the LNS Research believes are most widely understood to be the definition of Manufacturing Operations Management and it is these areas that will be the focus of future research.

We will also be focusing on these areas in future posts, discussing how this definition of Manufacturing Operations Management relates to enabling technologies in the space.

Access this NEW eBook, "Manufacturing Metrics in an IoT World: Measuring the Progress of the Industrial Internet of Things," presents results from the fourth iteration of the biennial Metrics that Matter research study conducted between LNS Research and MESA International. It places particular focus on what IIoT means to manufacturers in the MOM space.