The President and Chairman of Council, Nigerian Institute of Production Management-NIPM, Dr Olaniyi Opanuga has advised the manufacturers in the country to embrace professionalism in production and operations management.

The Institute accused some manufacturers of playing double standards by blaming   their woes on the government and the challenges of the environment in the country while they fail to employ, train, develop and retain professional production and operations managers.

“Every Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of a manufacturing organization who does not see himself or herself first and foremost as a production and operations management practitioner should sit back and think. The entire manufacturing organization is about production. When production stops there is no business”

According to Dr Opanuga, production and operations managers are not limited to persons designated as such but include the CEOs themselves, directors and general managers responsible for manufacturing, plant, factory, engineering, quality assurance, technical service, R&D, HSE/SHE, supply chain, logistics et cetera.

“It is wrong to reduce the scope of production management practice to senior or middle management level or the confines of the factory” he reiterated.

“Everyone in the organization right from the CEO to the least factory worker is a production person-you either produce goods or services or both. Production management is not just about the text book theory of  converting raw materials into finished goods but the management of resources such as manpower, materials, finance, technology, methods and markets. This misconception is a chief cause of capacity underutilization, high level of waste, low productivity, low quality, sub-optimization and poor alignment of business processes in organization”. NIPM is the professional regulatory body of all persons who practice production and  operations management in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If you practice without the membership qualification of the Institute you are a quack who is not expected to add any meaningful value to his organization and national development.