Chapter 6. Operations Management

Dr. Alston is an associate professor of pharmacy management and assistant dean for assessment at Wingate University School of Pharmacy in North Carolina. He has over 30 years of experience in community pharmacy management, both as a chain-pharmacy administrator and an independent pharmacy owner. He earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of the Pacific while simultaneously becoming a credentialed K-12 teacher through their School of Education. He teaches courses in pharmacy management, community health outreach, and pharmacy communications skills. His main research interest is in quantifying and qualifying the processes required to create viable professional niche business models.

Dr. Haltom is an assistant professor of pharmacy and director of introductory pharmacy practice experience (IPPE) at Wingate University School of Pharmacy. He earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at Wingate. His background includes community pharmacy practice with an interest in custom compounding. Dr. Haltom is course leader for IPPE discussion courses as well as Wingate's electronic mentor interaction course. He also teaches in community health outreach, pharmacy communications skills, and problem-based learning courses. His research interest is in understanding the predictors of failure to achieve competence.

After completing this chapter, readers should be able to

1. Define the role of the business in society and the role of profits in business.

2. Define the role of operations management within a business.

3. Describe the concept of command intent.

4. Describe how operations managers accomplish the command intent of an organization.

5. Describe the essential operations management tasks.

6. Illuminate differences between a production worker and a knowledge worker.

7. Describe Human Sigma as a model for customer service operations.

Trey Smith, Pharm.D., is the pharmacy manager at Smith's Drug, a small independent pharmacy. His pharmacy performs regular dispensing, custom compounding, and sells a line of durable medical equipment. Trey has recently lost one of his senior technicians to a competitor and has since hired a new associate, Lisa. It is Trey's responsibility to ensure that every member of Smith's Drugs staff is adequately trained in the pharmacy's workflow. Lisa has no prior experience in pharmacy, but is willing to give a great effort and wants to be well trained so that she can be an asset to the pharmacy team. Trey has outlined a plan with Lisa to get her up to speed on how to count and label prescriptions, how to compound medications, and bill patients' insurance. One of the most experienced technicians at Smith's Drug, Bill, often handles the position in the pharmacy that offers the greatest challenge—that is, where the patients drop off their prescriptions for entry into the computer system. As part of the training plan for Lisa, Trey has decided to let her train at the drop-off position on Wednesday afternoons when the pharmacy's business is slower so that she can work on inputting prescription and insurance information. This plan has worked quite well for the past 2 weeks, but on this particular Wednesday there ...