سیر تکاملی حوزه مدیریت عملیات

This Special Issue of the Journal of Operations Management consists of 16 articles by 26 authors covering Operations Managements (OM) topics and issues from the 16th century to the 21st with predictions for the future. While it does not pretend to be comprehensive, it is representative of the types of subjects of inquiry through out this historical period in what could be considered OM. This introduction attempts to put the papers in context, and concludes with comments about what might be considered fundamental concepts which, taken as a set, can be seen as the foundations of Operations Management today.

The spark underlying the idea for this Special Issue of the Journal of Operations Management was the 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Operations Management Division of the Academy of Management in 2002. Tom Choi, then OM Division Chair, and Ken Boyer, 2002 OM Division Program Chair, invited all past Division Chairs to attend this Meeting and participate in the Program. Fourteen of the Past Chairs came to Denver for the celebration and gave brief summaries of what was going on in the Division when they were Chairs. Most of the Chairs also participated in the Doctoral Consortium, continuing the tales of past issues, arguments, programs, enthusiasms and poker games. It became clear that many of these anecdotes, stories and even important intellectual themes – “HMMS” and the “MRP Crusade” in particular – were unknown to our Doctoral Students and junior Faculty. Even the not-so-distant past was disappearing into the mists of time. Morgan Swink, 2003 OM Division Program Chair, agreed to offer a Session in the 2003 Meeting focused on the history of the field. Chris Voss, Kate Blackmon and I gave a session at that meeting on “The Evolution of the Field of OM”, which was very well attended. Rob Handfield, then Editor of the Journal of Operations Management, was there. After the session, we talked and the result was my agreeing to serve as Guest Editor for a Special Issue of the JOM on the Evolution of the Field of OM. The following paragraphs are taken from the Call for Papers for this Special Issue: