Operations Management Fundamentals

The Operations Management Fundamentals Assessment is designed to evaluate a candidate’s grasp of end-to-end operational excellence concepts, focusing on how productivity, efficiency, capacity, and quality interact to drive performance outcomes. 

The test measures both conceptual understanding and practical application, ensuring candidates can interpret metrics, connect insights to business realities, and recommend process improvements that are both data-driven and commercially relevant. The test examines how well a professional understands the mechanics of operational efficiency i.e. how inputs translate to outputs, how capacity and utilisation are optimised, and how time, cost, and quality trade-offs are managed in dynamic environments. 

Key areas covered include the relationship between FTE, effective FTE, and headcount management, understanding leading and lagging performance indicators, and the practical application of metrics such as cycle time, AHT, throughput, and productivity ratios. The assessment also tests awareness of operational risks and cost drivers, including how rework, breaches, and discrepancies impact overall process performance. By completing this assessment, candidates demonstrate their ability to think like an operations strategist: balancing people, process, and performance dimensions to achieve sustainable productivity gains.