This chapter introduces operations management as the management of an organization's production system, which takes inputs and converts them into outputs. It discusses the historical milestones in operations management, from the Industrial Revolution to modern developments like scientific management, behavioralism, and the computer and service revolutions. Finally, it outlines how operations management is studied as a system involving inputs, conversion processes, and outputs, and the three levels of decisions - strategic, operating, and control - that operations managers make.