International Journal of Operations & Production Management: Volume 3 Issue 3

Flexibility as a Manufacturing Objective

Nigel Slack

The concept of the flexibility of manufacturing systems is topical and important for three reasons. First, the instability and unpredictability of the environment, in which…

The Japanese Style of Production Management — in Britain

Michael White

For many years, the achievements of Japanese industry were regarded in Britain as remarkable, enviable perhaps, but essentially irrelevant. The arguments always put forward by…

The Transfer of Concepts and Techniques Between Manufacturing and Service Systems

John C. Killeya, Colin G. Armistead

In recent years, it has become almost commonplace amongst production and operations management practitioners that the concepts, principles, methodologies and techniques from…

Services: Towards a Unified View

S. Zvegintzov

As a conceptual framework for teaching, the author asks what makes a service service‐like and following from that, are there common characteristics by which we can group different…

The Service Despatcher/Receptionist Role

C.A. Voss

The person responding to customer requests often diagnoses problems, despatches and schedules service resources. This article reports some exploratory research into the nature of…

Job Design Implications for Operations Managers

Brian Carlisle

This paper is concerned with job re‐design in operating systems: the types of change encountered; who advocates change and why; the implications of job changes for the job holders…

Manufacturing Systems Research: Where are the Boundaries?

J.G. Waterlow

This paper supports project based research and agrees with the view that it is impossible to draw a boundary around a group of subsystems in the real world so as to research only…