What technical skills are needed for an Operations Management position... preferably in some form of manufacturing? I am looking to see what skills I am lacking as I prepare for me transition.
Answers
Hi Michael thanks for your question.
Operations management is a broad field and regardless of what sector you seek a career, all operations managers will benefit from various soft and technical skills including:
Leadership skills: To successfully coordinate processes between departments and motivate employees, an operations manager needs excellent leadership skills.
Communication skills: Apart from ensuring that different departments work together effectively, an operations manager also facilitates communication between upper management and project development departments. An operations manager with good communication skills can effectively share information between parties and encourage teamwork.
Analytical and problem-solving skills: Operations management requires the ability to understand multiple processes on a detailed level. It also requires finding solutions for challenges. Operations managers should be able to identify and implement more efficient techniques across a range of departments.
Interpersonal skills: Most of the time, operations managers work with many different people involved in their companies, including sales and production employees, customers, project managers, human resources and upper management. An operations manager should have excellent interpersonal skills to interact with everyone successfully. (https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/operations-management)
Here's another link with a rundown of necessary skills for any operations manager: https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/operations-manager-top-needed-skills
Hope this helps.
-Ellsworth at ACP
Michael,
Adding to what the others have provided, a fundamental understanding of project management certainly would underpin a career in ops management as it encompasses many of the skills in the “Ops Mgr” resume link that Ellsworth provided earlier; budget/cost management, schedule management where you are either ahead of schedule or behind schedule ????, and a technical understanding of the industry/product that you pursue. It also encompasses the people collaboration element of working on diverse project teams.
For resource, the Project Management Institute is closely aligned to the College of Performance Management, and both are integral to the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) which has many divisions and working groups. The NDIA Manufacturing Division “aids industry/ government/academia interaction in technology directly related to manufacturing research, design, development, testing and production.” I would offer that investigation of these resources will drive continued critical thinking on the subject of your career path.
http://www.mycpm.org/about-us/
Michael,
What industry are you trying to work in? I have worked in a couple and the attitude can change a lot depending. Are you looking to be a people manager or a process manager, I work as an Ops Analyst and really like it, I have worked as an Ops Manager a few places, and enjoyed that too but they are a lot different from one another, look into it. If you want broad reaching high demand technical skills look into developing skills in excel and programing etc. If you like managing people be prepared to answer what you managements style is and how you have implemented improvements in some way, its almost a guarantee you will here something related to both those subjects in an interview.
Hope that Helps a little
Jake
Ellsworth,
Thank you for the quick response! The information that you have provided is along the lines that I have been tracking. The website links that you provided is really good resources!
Thank you again for your response and advice!
Michael
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