Everything You Need To Know About Operations Management Systems (OMS)

In 1913, Henry Ford introduced the first moving assembly line turning raw materials into working model T’s. With this innovation, Ford was able to cut down the timeline for producing a car from twelve hours to less than one and a half hours.

Just like Ford, many businesses are looking for ways to manage every aspect of their operations. With a solid operations management system (OMS), organizations can create a business framework that charts the path to increased productivity and better quality control at a reduced cost. An OMS also enables organizations to provide solutions to setbacks they might encounter in an operating environment faster, thereby giving them a competitive advantage in their industry.

In this article, we will be walking you through how to optimize your OMS to improve your production management, manufacturing process, and many other aspects of your business to meet growing market demands.

Jump ahead to the section that’s most relevant to you:

• What Is An Operations Management Systems= (OMS)?
• Why Do Businesses Rely On Operations Management Systems?
• The 5 Standard Features Every OMS Software Should Have
• Combine operations management with route optimization to reduce costs

What Is An Operations Management System (OMS)?

An operations management system is a collection of processes and procedures that enables a company to effectively manage business practices and achieve the highest level of efficiency with day-to-day operations.

Operations management systems are geared towards improving team performance and encouraging them to focus on tasks that are instrumental to their organization’s growth. There are different departments in an organization, and each of them has its responsibilities and goals. An OMS generally serves as a guide that ensures these various departments work together to achieve common business goals.

Robert Johnson, the founder of Sawinery, defines an OMS as “a set of essential elements—processes, procedures, resources—that are all necessary for the production and distribution of the goods and services to consumers.” This implies that an efficient OMS must include every bit of information needed to produce, distribute, and fulfill your products or services to fit customer demand.

An OMS is commonly used in the non-production aspects of a business as well. You can also use it for the management of information systems, administrative processes, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, inventory management, and so on.

The nature of your operations management, however, will be determined by what products or services you deal with in your organization.

Why Do Businesses Rely On Operations Management Systems?

Businesses rely on operations management systems to run, monitor, and schedule day-to-day activities for many reasons. Using an OMS, a business can examine how its procedures and performance align with its KPIs and make adjustments where necessary.

A solid OMS will also ensure the following:

Increase productivity & reduce waste

Operations management systems ensure your production and fulfillment process is running effectively, thereby freeing up time to do more useful work. Organizations can not only enhance their existing workflow, but they can also get feedback from customers and team members in real-time to see what’s working and what isn’t.

OMS enables businesses to optimally manage human resources during the production or distribution process to maximize return on investment. It minimizes time wasted and helps you cut unnecessary expenses that might crop up because of using slow and ineffective business processes.

Additionally, having an OMS that works will help you strike the right balance between increasing productivity and effective inventory control. 

Consolidate data & automate recurring processes

An OMS makes it easy to collect and consolidate data for better decision-making. Operations managers can always lean on data to monitor their production capacity and how they refine their production and distribution lifecycle for better ROI and customer satisfaction.

Managers can also automate repetitive or time-consuming business processes. They’ll be able to save time by delegating recurring and labor-intensive tasks to a software program.

Automation allows you to focus on more important tasks and reduce human errors. When automating an aspect of your operation management system, ensure you’re using a program that’s tailored to your business or industry. Also, make sure the software is very intuitive and easy to navigate.

Improve collaboration & facilitate cooperation

Operations management systems allow different departments in an organization to work together to achieve common business goals. It encourages healthy collaboration among coworkers to improve operational process management for better results.

For example, the sales and marketing department can work hand-in-hand to optimize an existing campaign to convert 10% more leads to their sales pipeline.

An OMS eliminates information silos, enhances communication, and makes information sharing easier. It makes collaboration with external partners seamless as well.

The 5 Standard Features Every OMS Software Should Have

Having the right operations management software can help you streamline your business process and will help you efficiently manage the manufacturing/distribution process. Not only that, it can improve your process and eliminate operational bottlenecks by automating repetitive tasks.

When choosing an OMS software, you must ensure it has the following features:

Analytics

A good operations management system software should be able to collect data and provide you with data-backed reports that will allow your team to make the right business decisions. Detailed analytics will also give you insights into the status of your business operations as well as the demands on your production capacity.

In addition, you can easily identify high-performing actions and make adjustments to strategies that are not driving business results. Lastly, using an OMS with a detailed analytics dashboard makes it easy to know when you’ve hit a target.

Cross-App integration

Oftentimes, you are in a position where you need to integrate data with your partners. For this reason, it’s important to consider an OMS software that makes cross-company data integration frictionless. This will make collaboration and sharing to other platforms less daunting.

Aside from sharing data with external sources, your OMS software of choice must make it easy to share data across other programs that you’re using in your company. Doing this will help save the time needed for manual data entry and also reduce human error.

Intuitive design

Your OMS tool must have an interface that’s very easy to use and navigate. Irrespective of your team member’s skill level, they should be able to make changes without any hassle. Also, the OMS software you’re considering needs to allow for easy customization to fit your business operation.

User security

Operations management system software must have impenetrable security. Having software that’s equipped with database encryption will help prevent data breaches and malware attacks. Your OMS tool should also allow external sources access to a section of your system without putting your whole system at risk. Additionally, you should be able to control access and assign specific tasks to users depending on their roles.

Combine Operations Management With Route Optimization to Reduce Costs

One way to reduce operational costs is by integrating route optimization software into your operations management system.

Route optimization enables you to find the most cost- and time-effective route that allows you to maximize completed orders. Using route optimization software like OptimoRoute has helped reduce mileage and increase delivery capacity by fourteen percent. 

It also enables businesses like yours to optimize for the best route and schedule without any hassle. 

Hop on OptimoRoute’s 30-day free trial to get on board today!