Production,Operations management_Research process and content during the 1980s.pdf

8/14/2019 Production,Operations management_Research process and content during the 1980s.pdf

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Production/OperationsManagement: ResearchProcess and Content duringthe 1980s

Andy Neely .Univers i ty o f Cambr idge , U K_ .. I

ntroductionProduction/operations management (IVOM),as a functional field of m anagement,has developed rapidly d uring the last15years.As consum ers have become morediscerning and competition more intense, manufacturing organizations havebeen presented with a w ide variety of pan acea s including; just-in-time(JIT),totalquality management(TQM),manu facturing resources planning MRPII),flexiblemanuf acturing systems (FMS) and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM),allofwhich ap pe ar to fall in and outof favour with alarming regularity.In thelate 1970s the future for the P/OM community looked bleak and many prominentUSbus iness schools w ere closing down their P/OM courses[1].By the mid-1980sthe new industrial competition, particularly that from Japan,hadheightenedindustrial interest inP/OMto the extent thatitwas only the lackof qualifiedteachers which was constraining business schools from offering new P/OMcourses[l,2].What has happened, then,tothe academ ic d isciplineofP/OMinthe last15years? Howhasthe field developed? W hyhas itdevelopedso rapidly? Whateffect has this had on research conducted by the mem bers of the P/OM comm unity?How has their research changed and how is it likelytochange in the future? Afteradd ressin g some of these ques tions and reviewing some of the pape rs, from bothsidesofthe Atlantic, which p urp ort to provide research fi-ameworksforP/OM,all the pap ers pu blishedin the first ten volumesoftheIn tern a t io n al Jo u rn al o fOperations ProductionM a t m g e m e n tare categorized according to their researchcontent and process. Th e resu lts of this categorization exercise are used to highlightsomeof the interesting trends apparent in the P/OM research conducted duringthe 1980s.P OMBuffa[3] suggested that three overlapping phasesofevolutionary developmentin the fieldofP/OM could be identified. Th ese a re show ninFigure1.In the mid-1950s, while initsdescriptivephase,P/OM w as effectively synonymouswith the entire fieldof industrial managem entandelem ents from functionaldisciplines as diverse a s finance, m arketing a nd personnel management were allincluded under the P/OM umbrella. By1961,the yearinwhichP/OMsdescriptive

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phaseended[3],the P/OM community was beginning to disintegrate, with some ofits members leaving to establish their own functional fields of management. Asfunctional specialization becamemorepopular those members of theP/OMcommunitywho remained found themselves fighting for the survival of a discipline which hadbeen stripped of all but a few techniques: timeand motion study, plant layout, Gantfsproduction control boards, the simpleEOQmodel, and simplistic descriptions ofhowproduction systems worked [3, p. 1].Between 1960 and the late 1970s management science/operations research(MS/OR) proved to be P/OM s saviour. Indeed when the first 25 years of theManagem ent Science Journal were reviewed it was found that productionmanagement problems were consistently the most studied area (27 percent),followed by finance (8 per cent) and marketing{6per cent)[4].However MS/ORis not, in itself,P/OM and has, to a certain extent, proved to be a false prophetfor the field. By the mid-1970s most of the MS/OR techniques which had beendevelopedtosolve traditional P /OM -type problems were being appliedtoproblemsin all the functional fields of managem ent and , as these MS/OR techniques becam egeneral m anagementtools,the mem bers of the P/OM comm unity found that once

again they had lost their distinctive competence.By the early 1980s the future for P/OM wa s looking mu ch brighter. New P/OMjournals, on both sides of the Atlantic,the Journal of perationsM anagementin theUSand theInternatwtialjournal of perations ProductionM anagementin the UK, were first pu blished in 1980. M illeret al[l]observed that, in the US,the decline in manufacturing competitiveness, particularly the shortcomings inproductivity and technological innovation, had led to a rapid inc rease in the levelof interest expressed in the field and that it was the lack of suitably qualifiedteachers which w as the limiting factor when se tting up a new P/O M course. Inthe UK a similar optimism seemed to sweep through the higher educational


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establishments andVoss[2]also argued that this was p rincipally d ue to the nowwidely recognized new industrial competition, particularly that from Japan.At about the same time, companies which had been hard hit by foreigncompetition were publicizing early results which later proved to be majorturnaroun ds, achieved through the application of modern production and operationsman agem ent techniques. For example, in1983Harley-Davidson held only23pe rcent of the North American market share for heavyweight motorcycles. Thecompany had lost almost 77 per cent of its market share in 15 years b ecause ofintense competition from Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Ka wasaki. By the end of1989Harley-Davidson's ma rket share wa s reported as59percent and still rising.This impressive turnaround has been at tr ibuted to three basic operat ionsmanagement principles; employee involvement, statistical operator control andmaterial-as-needed, the Harley-Davidson version of just-in-time (JIT) material8upply[5].

Buffa's third p hase of evolution for operations m anagem ent bega n in the early1980s and he argues that this was when P/OM found itself emerging as a truefunctional field of managem entf3]. Since then, advanc ed manufacturing technologiessuch as just-in-time JIT), total quality management (TQM), manufacturingresources planning (MRPIT),flexible manufactu ring system s FMS)and computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) have all been subject to wide scrutiny. Voss[2]poin ts out that production/ope rations m anage men t is often confused with eitheropera tions research or with technology but tha t it is now really concerned withthe effective selection, application and managem ent of new technologies. Acceptingthat this is an accurate description of the true functional nature of P/OM thenone can hypothesize that research conducted in the field should have changedconsiderably since P/OM's MS/ORphase.Tha t is nottosay that MS/OR techniqueswill no longer be used but that MS/OR is now a functional discipline in its ownright and simply provides one set of tools that a P/OM researcher can use. Oneof the objectives of this article is to test this hypothesis by examining all theresearch published in the first ten volumes of theInterfmtionalJournal of Operations Produclion Managem ent. In order to do this it is first necessary to identifywhat changesinP/OM researchonewould ejq)ect and thento develop acategorizationframework which can be used to identify w hether such changes actually occurred.In the next section some of the P/OM research frameworks which were publishedin the earlytomid-1980s willbereviewed and the major issues they raise identified.A research categorization framework, based on the reviewed papers, will thenbe proposed and used to categorize all the articles which were published in thefirst ten volumes of the International Journal of Opera tions Produc tionManagement.T he resu lts of the categorization process will form the basis for adiscussion of how both the content and process of P/OM research has changedsince the late 1970s.P/OM R esearch F ramew orksIn the first edition ofthe Journal of perationsManagement,Chase[4]presenteda superb paper with which to begin a review of P/OM research since the end of



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its MS/OR phase.Heexamined and categorized the134P/O M -type papers whichhad been published in volumes9and1 of ecision Sciences volumes1 and 11ofAIIE Transactions volumes 24 and 25 ofM anagement Science and volumes15,16 and17of theInternationalJournal ofProduction Researchusing a frameworbased on the two dimensions of research orientation and research emphasis,similar to the one shown in Figure 2.

Th e research orientation dimension referstothe perspective which the researchershave adopted. Chase argues that there are two basic categories within researchorientation. Either the research focuses on a narrow, well-defined problem a ndismiCTo in orientation or it focuses on a larger and usually less well-structuredproblem and is macro in orientation. The research emphasis dimension, on theother hand, is used to describe the mechanization continuum. Chase argues thatbecause all production systems must consist of some combination of people, interm s of their physiological, sociological and physical characteristics, and tangibleproduction equipm ent facilities, machines, inventories, tran spo rtatio n devices,etc.) then so mu st all P/OM research . In his categorization framework Chasemerely uses the end poin ts of the mechanization c ontinuum and is simply tryin gto answer the question: does this research focus predomitiantly on people orequipment?

Of the 134 articles which Chase reviewed and categorized he found that lessthan19per cent described research in which a people emphas is had been adopted.By far the majority of pape rs, 76 per cent, were based on research w hich had anequipment emphasis and a micro orientation. The actual breakdown of thecategorizations is shovm in Figure 3.

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OPM in the field. How do these recomm endations comp are with the tho ug hts of otherJ authors at that time?Milleret al[\]say that technology, managing fundamentals and strategicorientation were the three predominant themes which emerged during a P/OMworkshop held in 1980. W ith respect to technology it was claimed that researchseemed to lag behind the indu strial state-of-the-art hard wa re and tha t software,or thoughtware, such as MRP, Kanban and manag ement development in theservice sector, were all poorly understood. It was suggested that one way ofrectifying th is would be for academ ics to conduc t systematic field-based researchwith an emphasis on collecting, generalizing and disseminating information onindustrial best practice. An integral pa rt of such research would include investigationboth of how to implement new technologies and of wha t benefits could be expectedfollowing the implementation.

The second major area which was highlighted wa s manag ing fundamentals,or, as Peters and Waterman[7] later called it, sticking to the knitting. As Milleret al\\ p. 566] point out, contrary to popularbelief Japanese auto plants aremore productive not because they are highly automated compared to ours butbecause the Japanese have learned to achieve maximum performance from allsystem components; equipment, information and, m ost ofall.people. Once againthe emph asis is on field-based research, particularly th at focusing bo th on peopleissues and on system integration.The third and final theme which was identified as important at the workshopwas strateg ic orientation. In supp ort of Skinner[ ]and those w ho have followedhim, M illeret al[\ p. 567] say that: ma nufactu ring capab ilities, depe nden t asthey areonlong lead times and major organizational upheavals, are more imp ortantdeterminants of strategic options than the availability of capital resources. Theway things are done is not just a matter of style or even cost effectiveness; itdefines the product. Hence they argue that manage me nt decisions conc erningcapacity planning, facilities location and multi-plant production need to beexamined to determine their strategic influence. In this case there is a need forfield-based research with a m a a o o rientation.Basically, then, both Chase and Miller et al seem to have very similar viewsof how P/OM research should have developed du ring the 1980s. The predom inantthemes in the US appear to have been; increased field-based research, both in

term s of industrial collaboration an d exploitation or implem entation of existingtheory, increased emphasis on the human element, increased research scope,increased research both on purchasing and on service operat ions and thedevelopment of a strategic framework for P/OM. If these were the key US them esat the beginning of the 1980s, how do they compa re with the thou gh ts of auth or sbased in the UK?In 1980 the UK's Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) providedfunding for research into manufacturing through its Efficiency of ProductionSystems (EPS) panel. Waterlow[8] reports that one of the aims of the EPSprogram me w as to encourage research which examined the relationship between

various manufacturing subsy stem s rather than examining isolated elements. He


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alsoexplains thatthe membei-sof theEPSpanel regarded working with collaboratingcompanies to be of fundamental importance and that the exploitation andimplementation of existing ideas was seen to be more important than thedevelopment of entirely new ones. H ence, in the early 1980stheSERCwas forcingresearchers, at least those who wanted fimding for their efforts, to explore realmacro rather than micro issues in conjunction with industry.Waterlow[8.p.49]defines a manufacturing system as comprising the equipment,its layout and relationship to the products produced, work practices, planningand control routines, order generation methods, and interfaces with design,ma rketing and finance. Hence, although tre nds similar to those observed in theUS can be identified, nam ely the em phas is on collaborative m acro research, theparallel issue of increased research on soft sys tem s does not app ear to have beenexplicitly included in the EP S progra m me . Indeed, W aterlow[8, p. 55] actuallysays: research on soft sy stem s in the program me is likely to concen trate on howto handle variety with sho rt lead times, and to relate more closely to new proc essand com puter tech nologies (including software) in order to overcome some of theinherent difficulties in this type of research. Topics which will be coveredsuperficially, or not at all, which are of potential interest to P/OM researchers,are manufacturing policies, management styles, organizational structures, andperformance mea sureme nt. Of course, it may be that mem bers of the SERCassumed that such subjects were funded under research program mes sponsoredby the Economic and Social Research Council(ESRC),formerly the Social ScienceResearch Council.

In 1982 the UK sSocial Science Research Council(SSRC)comm issioned a reviewof current P/OM research. Lawrence [9]was given the task of studying researchon the man-management aspects of P/OM, particularly in terms of who becameproduction manage rs, wh at their expected career path was and wha t qualificationsthey had , etc.Voss[2]examined the wider P/OM issues. As pa rt of his study Vossorganized a two-day worksho p w hich w as attended by over 50 P/OM researchersand teachers, and where a variety of papers on current research interests waspresented. Coupling information collected during discussions at the workshopwith the resu lts of a wider survey Voss identified the ten major P/OM topic are aswhich were of interest to UK academics in the early 1980s.Th ese were:

(1) manufacturing policy;(2) measurement of performance;(3) international comparisons;(4) techno logy (e.g. CAD/CAM, FM S. robotics. CIM);(5) management of technological change;(6) application of computers;(7) production planning and inventory control;(8) quality management;(9) quantitative approaches; and

(10) service operations management.



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hispaperVossw as keentoemphasizethemanagerial nature ofP/OM.Specifically,he argued that P/OM research wa s required in the following areas :

man ufacturing policy; ma nagem ent of technology;2 foreign man ufacturing practices;^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ~ ^ ^ ^ service operations;

purc hasing and quality.In summary, one can identify a num ber of parallel theme s in the pa per s bo thfrom the US an d from the UK which w ere published in the early 1980s an dpurported to present P/OM research frameworks. The major theme seems tohave been that P/OM was now em erging as a functional field of man agem ent inits own right. Because of this, research on manufacturing policy (which couldprovide an integ rative theme for all P/OM research) was seen as fundam entallyimp ortant. In term s of the content of research, that is, the question ofwJiatshouldbe examined, the major themes app ear to have been that em phasis on the softerelements of P/OM should be increased and that more research of a macro natureshould be undertaken. When one considers the research process, that ishowshould the workbeconducted, the principal them es appeartobe more collaborationwith industry and an increase in emphasis on implementation and exploitationof existing ideas, rather than development of entirely new ones. In the next sectionthe research dim ensions of content and process are used to develop categorizationframeworks. These frameworks were used to categorize all the articles whichwere published in the first ten volumes of theInternationa/Journal of Opera tions ProductionM anagementin an attempt to see if the P/OM com munity ha s livedup to those early challenges w hich were laid down in the research framew orkswhich have been reviewed. Th e results of the categorization process follow sectionson the development and use of the categorization framew orks.Developm ent of ategorization Fram eworksTh e major themes identified in the previous section canbesplit into two categories.The first, which reflects the research scope or content, addresses the issue ofwhatis being s tudied. Is it mac ro or micro in orientation? Does it em phas ize th ehard or soft elements of P/OM? Th is question of research sco pe can be exam inedusin g a categorization framework similar to the one developed by Chase[4]. Oneof the major advantages of using such a framework is that an approximatecomparison can be made between the two studies. However it is acknowledgedthat, because different individuals have categorized the different papers, onecannot assum e that the results are directly comparable.

The second set of themes can be categorized according to the research pnx;ess,or style, adop ted. nthis case the question that is being addressed is: ww(and why)was this research conducted? Was it collaborative? Was the research designed to


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produce new theoriesor to identify waysofexploiting existing ideas? Figu re4shows both of these categorization frameworks with their associated keys.Use ofthe ategorization Framew orks . ^As can be seen in Figure 4,each quadi-ant in each of the categorization frameworkshas been labelled 1,2,3 or4.Th e qu adrant labelled 4 is the one which most closelyrepresents theMS/OR -type research philosop hies identified byChase[4].Thequa dra nt labelled is the one into which an increasing amount of P/OM researchshould fall if the predictions made by the autho rs of the P/OM research frameworkswhich have been reviewed have come true . As faras w as possible the followingguidelines w ere followed when categorizing each article.Research Scope ategorizationFrameworkResearchorientation Th e research orientation is either macro or micro. All pa per swhich referred to an isolated problem, such as how to schedu le a m anufacturin gcell,orhowtoselectacomputer-aided de sign CAD) system , were categorizedas ha ving a micro orientation. An example of a paper having a m acro orientationwould be one which focused on issues such a s: how willtheimplem entation ofa CAD system helpto integrate the design and manufacturing function?Researchempiiasis Papers based primarilyonmanagerial issues, suchas theJIT manufacturing philosophy, job design and quality circles were categorizedas hav ing a soft emp hasis. At the other extreme, reports w hich focused on machinetools,layoutofplant a nd statistical pro cess control were classified as hard.ResearchStyle ategorizationFrameworkResearchpurpose If the objective of the research wa s to produce a new schedulingalgorithm orto designanew method of manufacture then the research purpo sewas classified asdevelopmental.If on theother h and,theresearch reported


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JOPM studies of existing technology or industrial practice and the em phasis was on1 3I exploitation of the ideas then the research wa s categorized as exploitative.Research team. If the research was conducted in partnership with industrythen it was classified as collaborative. If it was conducted in a laboratory withlittle or no extern al input then it wa s categorized as isolated.Th us during the categorization process the following four q uestions were being1 4 addressed:

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ (1) Does the resea rch have a b road o r nar row o rienta tion?(2) Does the research p redom inantly focus on the soft or hard P/OM issues?(3) Is the research pu re or does it produce som e practical conclusions whichwill help industrialists to implement advanced m anufac turing technologies?(4) Is the research team mu ltidisciplinary?

Because of the inherent subjectivity of thismethod justifications for the categorizationof all the pap ers in volume 1. numbe r of theInternational Journal of Opera tions roductionM anagement have been provided below. It is hoped that this willoffer the reader some insight into the though t processe s which accompan ied thecategorization of the papers.Justification for ategor izations aperI:W [ 1 0 ].Thetitleof thispaper Manufacturing ImplicationsinD eterminingCorpo rate Policy sug ges ts that the research will have a mac ro orientation. Inthe first section of the paper, Hill explains that he asked two groups of seniorma nagers what they understood by the phrase manu facturing policy . Hence,one can conclude tha t the research team is multidisciplinary, that is, it involvesboth academics and industrialists. By scanning through the rest of the paper itcan be seen that Hill goes on to exam ine why m anu facturin g directors do not getinvolved with the development of manufacturing policy and ultimately a frameworkshowing how m anufacturing policy issues are related to corporate decisions ispresented. Thisframeworkiestowards the soft end of the mechanization continuumand is certainly designed for exploitation. Hence Hill's pape r is categorized a s 1both for research scope and for research style.

Paper 2: Ray[ll]. T his paper, entitled Assessing UK Indu stry's InventoryManagement Performance , immediately suggests collaborative or multidisdplinaryresearch, possibly th roug h the use of surveys . On reviewing the paper, however,it becomes apparent th at Ray has based his paper on a variety of publicly availablerepo rts. Th e topic is micro in perspective, in that Ray considers inventory alone.The emphasis of the research, inventory management, is relatively hard andwhile Ray prese nts a convincing case which emph asizes the im portan ce of goodinventory m anagem ent there are few practical sug gestions a s to wh at one shoulddo. Therefore this paper is categorized as a 4 both for research scope and forresearch style. aper3:Sassani andRathmiU[12].Th e title of this paper is An Eva luation ofthe Effects of Skill Variety and Labour Mobility in the Operation of Industrial

Man/Machine Groups Using a Simulation Model . Th e synopsis specifically mentions


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collaboration w ith a company and o peratorskills.Hence one's imm ediate reactionis that the research team is multidisciplinary and the research emphasis is soft.However the research was actually based on a simulation in which it has beenassumed that the hu ma ns are merely machine m inders. So the initial researchemp hasis categorization of soft is changed to hard. Sassani and Rathmill say thattheir simulation model was useful for the managers in the firm, but that a highlevel of skill w as required before one could use it. Hence the research pur pos eapp ears to have been developmental rathe r than exploitative. Finally the problemaddressed wa s that of how to assign w orkerstomachines w hich in itselfisa fairlyspecific andhenc microproblem. The final categorizations for Sassani and Ratlimill spaper, then, are a 4 for research scope and a 2 for research style.

per :WnghtiXZ}.In his paper, Wright argues that pu rchasingisa somewhatneglected function which has been ignored both by academ ics and by industrialists.The paper is abstract, developmental and the research is isolated. Hence it iscategorized as a4for research style. In term s of research scope the p aper is macroin orientation and fairly soft, and hence is categorized as a 1. per5:Fortuin[li].Fortuin s paper, The All-time Requirement of Spa re Pa rtsfor Service after Sales: Theoretical Analysis and Practical Results , focuses onthe fairly narrow or micro problem of identifying the all-time requirement forreplacement com ponents. He develops a mathem atical model and p resents datafrom an average case . Th e pa per is categorized as 4 both for research scopeand for research style.Paper6:H()Sie}[l5\.The title ofthispaper The Grouping Concept in Manufacturing ,suggests that the research emphasis will be hard and this proves to be the case.In his conclu sions Hollier su gg est s that a wider view should be taken of theconcept of grouping in the design and operation of production sy stem s as a majorstepinsimplifying their complexity [15,p. 77],Hence the orientation of the researchis macTO. Th is gives a final class ification for the resea rch scope of3.Th e researchstyle is categorized a s a3 .It is isolated because H ollier is usin g his own opinionsto explain the concept of groupin g and exploitative because the pa per is writtenin a style which exp lains the concepts and benefits of grouping.Results from the ategorization Pr ocessFigures 5 and 6 show the broad trends during the 1980s in terms both of thecontent and of the process of the P/OM research published in the InternationalJournal of Operations Production Managem ent {IJOPM).At the beginning ofthe decade, as Chase[4] suggests, there was a tendency to conduct, or at leastreport, resea rch on ha rd topics w ith a micro orientation. (Seventy-three per centof papers published in volume of the IJOPMfell into this ca tegory. Th is iscom parable w ith the figure of76per cent that Chase reports.) However, over thefollowing few years, more research on softer an d macro topics was rep orted and,by the middle of the decade, articles which focused on the m acro/soft P/OM topicswere more common in theIJOPM thanthose which focused on m icro/hard issu es.With respect to the research process the picture is somewhat less clear.Isolated/developmental research appears to be the most common. In fact, over


1


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the ten-year period, 41 per cent of papers published in the J O P M fell into thiscategory. Next most com mon is collaborative/developm ental researc h {25 percent),followed by collaborative/exploitative 18 percent andfin llysolated/exploitative16 per cent). However, as can be seen in Figure 6 the research processes varysubstantially on an ann ual basis and it app ears that the choice of research processhas not been subject to the same pressu res as research content. Perhaps this isbecause the research proce ss adopted is a question of personal preference, w hilethe research contentissubject to the current m indset of the mem bers of a researchcomm unity. It is, of course, unrealistic to suggest that any one research processisbetter than any other. It is vital that, as a community, P/OM researchers developtechniques which can be exploited, but at the same time if there were no pureresearch then no new techniques would be generated. In fact if there were nopure research the role of the mem bers of the P/OM comm unity w ould be to reportand disseminate information on existing best practice, a role which one couldargue m ight be better suited to journa lists than academics.


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ConclusionsThe principal purpose of this article was to examine how the radical changeswhich have taken place in the P/OM field during the last 15 years have affectedboth the content and process of the P/OM research reported in theIJOPM Afterdescribing P/OM's evolutionary development and identifying the predicted chang esin P/OM research all of the papers published in the first ten volumes of theInternational Journal ofOperations ProductionM anagement were categorizedaccording to the research which they reported. The data generated from thisexercise showed that while there was a steady trend during the 1980s towardsincreased macro/soft resea rch an d decreased m icro/hard research, there were nosimilar trends with respect to the research processes used.

One issue which has not yet been addressed is the question of the future ofP/OM research. In 1980 Chase[ ]wrote:Research on research is often a perilous unde rtaking , with the list of cave ats exceeding the listof results. This paper is no exception. Small sample sizes and judgement calls do not providea feeling of security, and prop osing w hat an entire field should consider smack s of hub ris andperhaps a little glue sniffing.

It is freely acknowledged that these comments apply to this article. Practicalresults are limited, as is the sample size, because only papers published in theIJOPM have been included. Because of this one could argue that the resultsreported reflect the editorial policy of the journal a nd do not relatetodevelopmentsin the P/OM field a s a whole. A s a counter-argument one could sugg est that thepapers published in the IJOPM should be reasonably representative of P/OMresearch a s a whole and that little, if anything , would be gained b y rep eating thesam e process w ith different jou rnals . In the end, however, the imp ortan t point isnot so much the results reported but the issue which they raise. During the 1980sthe amount of research with a macro/soft content appears to have increased atthe expense of that with a micro/hard content as predicted in the P/OM researchframeworks reviewed. Why then has the same not happened with respect to thecollaborative/exploitative research p rocess? Is it because the choice of researchprocess is a function of personal preference? Is it because conferences, papersand s em inars often focus on the issue of research content rathe r than the processused? Perhaps one of the key questions for the 1990s is not only what but alsohow P/OM research should be conducted?


R e f e r e n c e s

Miller. J.G..Graham, M.B.W., Freeland, J.R., Hotten stein, M., Ma ister, D.H., Mered ith. J. an dSchmenner, R.W,. Produc tion/Operations M anagem ent: Agenda for the '80s .DecisionSciences,Vol. U, 1981,pp.547-71.Voss,C.A., Produc tion/Operations M anagem ent: A Key Discipline and A rea for Research .Omega International Journal of M anagement Science,Vol. 12No.3,1984, pp. 309-19.Buffa,E.S., Research in Ope rationsWl^nag^ment Journal ofOperationsManagement,Vol.lNo .1 1982 pp. 1-7.Chase, R.B., A Classification a nd E valuation of Research in Op eration s M anagem ent ,Journal of O perations Management, Vol.1 1980.pp . 9-14.


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OPM - ^ ' R-W., Jo hn so aR T .and Tumey,PSB.,M easur ingU p:ChartingPathways to M anufacturiQ1 Excellence,B usiness One Irwin, Hom ewood, IL. 1991.' 6. Skinner, W., Ma nufac turing - Missing Link inCorpo ra t e S t r a t egy . Harvard BusinessReview,Ma y-June, 1969, pp . 136-45.

7. Peters, T.J. and W aterm an, R.H.,In Search of Excellence: Lessons from Am erica's Best-runCompanies .Harper Row, Lon don, 1982.Q 8 . Waterlow,J.G., M anufacturing System s Research: Where Are the Boundaries? ,InternationalJournal of Op erations Production Man agem ent, Vo\.3N o.3,1983, pp. 49-54.9. Lawrence,P.A.,O perat ionsM anagemen t:Resea rch and Priorities ,Department of ManagemeStudies, U niversityofLoug hborough , A pril 1983.

10 . Hill, T.J., M anu facturing Implication s inDe termin ing Co rpora te Pol icy , InternationalJournal of Op erations Production Man agem ent, Vol. 1 No.1,1980,pp. 3 -11.IL Ray, D.L., Assessing UK Indust ry 's Inventory M anagem ent Per formance , InternationatJournat of Op erations Production Man agem ent, Vol. 1 No.1,1980,pp . 12-26.12 . Sassan i ,R a n dRathm it l, K., An Evaluat ion of the Effects ofSkill V ariety a n dLabourMobility inthe OperationofIndust r ia l M an/Machine Groups U singa Simulation Model .International Journal of Op erations Production Ma nagem ent.Vol. 1 No.1,1980,pp. 27-46.13 . W right , G., Purcha sing , Risk a n dL ogis t ics:ANeglec ted Com binat ion? , InternationatJournal of Op erations Production Man agem ent,Vol. 1 No.1,1980,pp. 47-58.

14 . Fortuin, L., The All- time Requirem entofSpa re Pa r t sf orService after S ales: TheoreticalAn alysis an d Practical Results ,InternationalJournal of Op erations Production Man ageme ntVol. 1 N o.1,1980,pp . 59-70.15 . Hollier, R.H., The Grou ping Gm cep i in M anufac turing , InternationalJournal of Op erations Production Management . VoL 1 No.1,1980,pp. 71-8.

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