A doctor with a long queue may limit consulting time but may overlook a serious illness and have no time for people as people. Options involve conflicts. Efficiency can conflict with effectiveness, flexibility and adaptability. Operational Research A range of techniques may be used to examine how conflicts may be balanced. Techniques include value analysis, linear programming, network analysis, statistical quality control and efficiency measures.
Schools use staff-student ratios, curriculum planning and class scheduling methods.
Quantitative techniques offer only limited help, the whole system and boundary relationships with other systems must be managed. The boundary concerns of operations management include Innovation - for new product development. What the design is and how it can be produced are important development decisions. Innovative designs have to be made within cost and skill parameters. When financial organisations launched PEP's - these had to designed and staff trained to handle the new products.