Operations officer

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference

The operations officer was a Starfleet position within the operations division which was common in the 24th century.

On board starships, the operations position (also known simply as "ops") evolved from older 23rd century positions. The bulk of the duties held by the helm and navigation positions were combined into the conn position. Other functions of the helm panel, such as internal systems control, became the purview of ops, as have some communications and sensor system usages. Furthermore, ops personnel coordinate the scheduling of resources, hardware and system usage for an entire starship, outpost or space station.

The ops position is typically manned by a member of the command staff of a starship, regardless of seniority. On the USS Enterprise-D, Operations Officer Data (who doubled as second officer) was the most senior member of the ship's staff save the captain and XO, but on USS Voyager, Operations Officer Harry Kim was the most junior bridge officer. As analytical operations relied upon knowledge of science and engineering disciplines, operations managers sometimes performed the additional duties of a science officer, as exemplified by both Lieutenant Commander Data and Ensign Harry Kim. (TNG: "Conundrum"; VOY: "Caretaker", etc.)

This designation was also used on one occasion to describe the chief of operations Miles O'Brien during his assignment aboard Deep Space 9. (DS9: "Facets")

[edit] Background

Much of the information about the writer's intentions for this new position, which described the term "operations manager", established at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation, comes from the writer's bible of that series, which later was adapted into data for the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual.

[edit] Apocrypha

The Star Trek Roleplaying Game Player's Guide describes the operations officer as a consummate master of technology.