A supervisory program or supervisor is a computer program that is usually referred as an operating system. It controls the execution of other routines such as regulating work schedules, input/output operations, and error actions.
Historically, this term was essentially associated with IBM's line of mainframe operating systems starting with OS/360. In other operating systems, the supervisor is generally called the kernel.
References
This article incorporates public domain material from Federal Standard 1037C. General Services Administration. Archived from the original on 2022-01-22. (in support of MIL-STD-188).