A primary business function, along with marketing and finance, the operations function plays a vital role in achieving a company's strategic plans. Since the operations function produces the goods and provides the services. it typically involves the greatest portion of the company's employees and is responsible for a large portion of the firm's capital assets. It has a major impact on quality and is often the visible face of the company with which the customer must deal. Customer service, product/service delivery, quality issues, and the effectiveness of many customer interactions are all operations activities.