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The purpose of this paper is to assess the differences in importance assigned by manufacturing or service organizations to topics related to operations management and its attendant body of knowledge.

The authors did this by cataloguing and analyzing vacancy announcements related to operations management, presented by manufacturing and services companies in major Brazilian human resources websites.

The results show that manufacturing companies primarily hire personnel with skills in routine process management, quality management, lean manufacturing, ergonomics and work organization. Service companies generally seek professionals with knowledge and experience in logistics, supply chain management and project management.

This study presents some limitations that reduce the power of its conclusions. There is some degree of subjectivity in the interpretation of the contents of the analyzed ads. In order to reduce this problem, the authors who did the tabulation of data marked the situations for which there were some doubts about the classification, discussing them with the other author, until they reached a consensus on the best way to classify each one.

The discussion about the importance assigned by manufacturing and service companies to the topics of operations management is crucial for not only the results obtained, but also to stimulate the debate on topics that comprise or should comprise the body of knowledge of operations management, and the way they are incorporated into business practice. This provides an additional opportunity to reflect on the potential of operations management in supporting business managers now and in the future.

The study aims to map the links between Industry 4.0 (I-4.0) technologies and circular economy (CE) for sustainable operations and their role to achieving the selected number of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The study adopts a systematic literature review method to identify 76 primary studies that were published between January 2010 and December 2020. The authors synthesized the existing literature using Scopus database to investigate I-4.0 technologies and CE to select SDGs.

The findings of the study bridge the gap in the literature at the intersection between I-4.0 and sustainable operations in line with the regenerate, share, optimize, loop, virtualize and exchange (ReSOLVE) framework leading to CE practices. Further, the study also depicts the CE practices leading to the select SDGs (“SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation,” “SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy,” “SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure,” “SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production” and “SDG 13: Climate Action”). The study proposes a conceptual framework based on the linkages above, which can help organizations to realign their management practices, thereby achieving specific SDGs.

The originality of the study is substantiated by a unique I-4.0-sustainable operations-CE-SDGs (ISOCES) framework that integrates I-4.0 and CE for sustainable development. The framework is unique, as it is based on an in-depth and systematic review of the literature that maps the links between I-4.0, CE and sustainability.

This paper explores the interaction and impact of political disruptions on textile supply chain performance in Pakistan. A qualitative approach is adopted to explore the linkages and relationships between political disruptions and supply chain disruptions and performance. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at 25 different textile manufacturing firms. This study confirmed the prevalence of severe and variegated impacts of political disruptions on the textile supply chain. Supply chain disruption is found to be a key mediating factor that directly and indirectly affect supply chain performance through an increased production and delivery lead-time, transportation delays, interruptions of raw material supplies to plants and distributors and the restricted access to workplaces for suppliers and workers. The linkages are represented through vicious circles that illustrate the interactions and inter-relationships between disrupted supply chain and performance. This study provides empirical evidence to help government to formulate pertinent labour laws and industrial policy to mitigate political disruptions and minimise deleterious effects of supply chain disruption on production and distribution networks whilst respecting and protecting the democratic rights of people.

While localized small-series production is a significant opportunity, various tensions challenge implementation in high-cost contexts. This paper explores how managers view and respond to different tensions in small-series production implementation by adopting a paradox-based perspective.

The paper presents a multiple case study addressing small-series production within EU's apparel industry, as key context to address managerial awareness, and responses to tensions regarding location and supply network configuration decisions. Seven cases were selected for variation in customization and implementation (early/established), ownership, location and company size, to identity commonalities.

The study highlights performing tensions related to sustainability, and risk, in addition to confirming traditional goal-related tensions predominantly impacting small volume production. With on-demand/custom production, tensions include costs in conflict with process scale, and several process-related tensions (flexibility, expansion/development, risk management). Identified multidimensional responses do not include location or structural decisions, instead focusing on synthesis, through product-operations efficiency, knowledge development and process innovation and supply chain collaboration. Temporal separation is found with customization, including reducing product/process complexity short-term with enhancing process development, which suggests latent learning tensions and limited awareness.

Future research should address the extent to which tensions can be resolved or remain paradoxical, as well as dynamic decision-making and latent tensions.

The paper shows how paradox theory facilitates a deeper understanding of complex network configuration decisions, including reshoring/localization. The findings identify organizing tensions/elements and elaborate upon performing/performing-organizing tensions suggested with small-series production, location decisions and supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of paradoxes, underlying tensions and potential management strategies when integrating digital technologies into existing lean-based production systems (LPSs), with the aim of achieving synergies and fostering the development of production systems.

This study adopts a collaborative management research (CMR) approach to identify patterns of organisational tensions and paradoxes and explore management strategies to overcome them. The data were collected through interviews and focus group interviews with experts on lean and/or digital technologies from the companies, from documents and from workshops with the in-case researchers.

The findings of this paper provide insights into the salient organisational paradoxes embraced in the integration of digital technologies in LPS by identifying different aspects of the performing, organising, learning and belonging paradoxes. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the intricacies and relatedness between different paradoxes and their resolutions, and more specifically, how a resolution strategy adopted to manage one paradox might unintentionally generate new tensions. This, in turn, calls for either re-contextualising actions to counteract the drift or the adoption of new resolution strategies.

This paper adds perspective to operations management (OM) research through the use of paradox theory, and we (1) provide a fine-grained perspective on why integration sometimes “fails” and label the forces of internal drift as mechanisms of imbalances and (2) provide detailed insights into how different management and resolution strategies are adopted, especially by identifying re-contextualising actions as a key to rebalancing organisational paradoxes in favour of the integration of digital technologies in LPSs.

Introducing additive manufacturing (AM) in a multinational corporation with a global spare parts operation requires tools for a dynamic supplier selection, considering both cost and delivery performance. In the switchover to AM from conventional manufacturing, the objective of this study is to find situations and ways to improve the spare parts service to end customers.

In this explorative study, the authors develop a procedure – in collaboration with the spare parts operations managers of a case company – for dynamic operational decision-making for the selection of spare parts supply from multiple suppliers. The authors' design proposition is based on a field experiment for the procurement and delivery of 36 problematic spare parts.

The practice intervention verified the intended outcomes of increased cost and delivery performance, yielding improved customer service through a switchover to AM according to situational context. The successful operational integration of dynamic additive and static conventional supply was triggered by the generative mechanisms of highly interactive model-based supplier relationships and insignificant transaction costs.

The dynamic decision-making proposal extends the product-specific make-to-order practice to the general-purpose build-to-model that selects the mode of supply and supplier for individual spare parts at an operational level through model-based interactions with AM suppliers. The successful outcome of the experiment prompted the case company to begin the introduction of AM into the company's spare parts supply chain.

Despite the abundance of small-scale farms in the USA and their importance for both rural economic development and food availability, the extensive research on small business management and entrepreneurship has mostly neglected the agricultural context, leaving many of these farms' business challenges unexplored. The authors focus on informing a specific decision faced by small farm managers: selling directly to consumers (i.e. farmer's markets) versus selling through aggregators. By collecting historical data and a series of interviews with industry experts, the authors employ simulation methodology to offer a framework that advises how small-scale farmers can allocate their product across these two channels to increase revenue in a given season. The results, which are relevant for operations management, small business management and entrepreneurship literature, can help small-scale farmers improve their performance and compete against their larger counterparts.

The authors rely on historical and interview data from key industry players (an aggregator and a small farm manager) to design a simulation analysis that determines which factors influence season-long farm revenue performance under varying strategies of channel allocation and commodity production.

The model suggests that farm managers should plan to evenly split their production between the two distribution channels, but if an even split is not possible, they should plan to keep a larger percentage in the nonaggregator (farmers' market/direct) channel. Further, the authors find that farmers can benefit significantly from a strong aggregator channel customer base, which suggests that farmers should promote and advertise the aggregator channel even if they only use it for a limited amount of their product.

The authors integrate small business management and operations management literature to study a widely understudied context and present practical implications for the performance of small-scale farms.