Operations Management is a sector of business which carefully deals with and manages processes which transforms input to produce goods and services for both internal and external customers. Along with managing the production, it also manages the distribution of the goods and services. A definition for operations management provided by APICS The Association for Operations Management is "the field of study that focuses on the effective planning, scheduling, use and control of manufacturing or service organization through the study of concepts from design engineering, industrial engineering, management information systems, quality management, production management, inventory management, accounting, and other functions as they affect the organization."


Typical Job Description
Operations managers can be responsible for a large range of staff, approximately anywhere from five to one hundred and fifty personnel. They usually report to either a general manager, the vice president, or sometimes directly to the president of the company.

A variety of activities are included in such a job description. Some of these responsibilities are managing purchases, developing and organizing marketing and financial strategic plans, and managing inventory and quality control. But at the end of the day, the description of an operations management position relies on whether the organization is in retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc, and mainly relies on the nature of the services and products of the organization.


Typical Salaries in Canada
According to payscale.com, the starting average salary is $45,004. Of course as experience increases, the pay increases to approximately $70,000. For exact figures for experience from less than one year to more than 20 years, refer to Figure 1 below:

Median Salary by Years Experience - Job: Operations Manager (Canada)

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Figure 1: Operations Management Median Salary by Years Experience
Source: Payscale

As you can see from Figure 1 above, with more operations management experience, the higher your salary will be. This is usually the case with most jobs, but from looking at the graph above, it seems that you stay at your given salary for approximately 4 years before you get a raise (due to experience).

Refer to Figure 2 below to view average salaries in different Canadian cities.

Median Salary by City - Job: Operations Manager (Canada)

Figure 2: Operations Management Median Salary by City
Source: Payscale

Figure 2 above demonstrates the median salaries in Canadian cities. We can see that Montreal and Edmonton have the highest operations management salary compared to the other Canadian Citites. We can also see that Toronto is not far behind. We can assume that Toronto will overtake Montreal and Edmonton pretty soon as it's economic rate is rapidly increasing.

Salaries Compared and Contrasted
There are many different ways to compare and contrast operations management job salaries. Some of these ways are described below.

Operations management jobs come in several different types, depending on the the organization. Figure 3 below outlines average salaries by employer type :

Median Salary by Employer Type - Job: Operations Manager (Canada)

Figure 3: Operations Management Median Salary by Employee Type
Source: Payscale

Other ways to compare operations management salaries are by degree/major subject as well as by school graduated. Take a look at Figures 4 and 5 for these comparisons.

Median Salary by Degree/Major Subject - Job: Operations Manager (Canada)

Figure 4: Operations Management Median Salary by Degree/Major Subject
Source: Payscale

Median Salary by School Name - Job: Operations Manager (Canada)

Figure 5: Operations Management Median Salary by School Graduated
Source: Payscale

By using the data from Figure 2, we can calculate the average median to equal $53,332. Data from salary.com states that the median expected salary for a typical operations management job in the United States is $95,954. If we take a look at Figure 1, we can see that the salary for someone with 20 or more years of experience in the operations management field has a median salary of $73,839. This is still significantly lower than the median salary in the United States.

References

1. Klassen, Robert D; Krajewski, Lee J; Malhotra, Manoj K; Ritzman, Larry P. (2007). Production Management – Textbooks. “Foundations of Operations Management”, Second Canadian Edition [Toronto, ON]: Pearson Education Canada (2004)
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_management
3. http://www.financedirector.com/jobdescription/operationsmanager.asp?job_title=operations%20manager&approvedjresults=1
4. http://www.payscale.com/research/CA/Job=Operations_Manager/Salary
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_management
6. http://jobs.state.va.us/careerguides/GeneralOperationManager.htm
7. http://www.managementhelp.org/ops_mgnt/ops_mgnt.htm
8. http://www.hcareers.ca/seeker/search/view?jobAdId=60080CF0D1D4288E
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APICS
10. http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_FA06000657.html

Further Reading/External Links

1. http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_IT10000037.html
2. http://www.iomnet.org.uk/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_management
4. http://salary.workopolis.ca/csalarywizard/layoutscripts/cswzl_titleselect.asp?jobcode=IT10000037&jobaltername=Computer+
   Operations+Manager&jobtitle=Computer+Operations+Manager&narrowdesc=IT+%2D%2D+All&narrowcode=IT03&zipcode=&
   metrocode=30&geo=British+Columbia+%2D%2D+Vancouver
5. http://operations-management.bestmanagementarticles.com/
6. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5840.html
7. http://www.buildyourownbusiness.biz/cat/index/52/Operations-Management-Articles.php
8. http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/uk/operations%20management.do (UK information)