This major textbook has been written to give students a clear, well structured and interesting treatment of operations management. It successfully provides a logical path through the activities of operations management and an understanding of the strategic context in which operations managers work. The book is structured around the popular design, planning and control model, but without separating planning from control activities. The improvement activities of operations have been covered in a separate part of the book to reflect the responsibility of operations managers to continually improve the performance of their operations. Throughout the book, service operations are treated with the same level of seriousness as manufacturing operations.