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The growing importance of service delivery highlights the need for well designed and operated service systems. A frame‐work, developed from the perspective of an operations manager, can aid in the understanding of service production, assist in the identification of appropriate design strategies, and prescribe associated system design choices. The major dimensions of the taxonomy are the characteristics of the system/customer interface (direct, indirect, or no customer contact) and the attributes of the service process (rigid or fluid service processes).

Three simple, single pass multi‐stage lot‐sizing heuristics are examined using simulation. The heuristics are based on using different cost policies in single stage lot‐sizing procedures when applied to a multi‐stage setting. The focus is on the echelon holding cost policy and its performance relative to using “full value” holding costs and McLaren's adjusted setup costs. It is shown that echelon holding costs can lead to an extremely poor overall cost performance. A simple measure that will detect situations for which the echelon holding cost policy is potentially not suitable is suggested and evaluated. Application of the proposed measure results in substantial cost improvements for the echelon holding cost policy; despite this, the policy was outperformed by the MLSA policy in most cases. More research is needed, however, before any conclusive evidence can be presented on the effectiveness of echelon holding costs in multi‐stage lot‐sizing.

The EOQ formula is definitely the oldest and best known single stage lot sizing technique. Its use reportedly dates back to 1904, even though it was not published until a later date. It is often looked upon with scepticism by practitioners and academicians alike, although the reasons for this may differ; it seems, however, to be the most widely used lot sizing technique overall.

The purpose of this paper is to visualize the prioritization among essential factors of cellular manufacturing system (CMS) implementation using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and analytic network process (ANP) methods.

Based on literature review, 4 enabler dimensions and 17 CM factors were identified which were validated by experts from academia and industry. Then, AHP and ANP models are proposed in evaluating CMS implementation dimensions and factors. The results are validated using sensitivity analysis.

These models give firms a straightforward and simple to utilize way to deal with CMS efficiently. The two strategies were appeared to be powerful in choosing a strategy for CMS implementation. The two strategies brought about nearly similar outcomes. Both methods consider the particular necessities of the organization through its own accessible ability.

The techniques exhibited in this paper can be utilized by a wide range of organizations for adopting CMS that have a higher impact on performance and thus overall productivity. The two techniques are explained in a step-by-step approach for easier adoption by practitioners.

The strength of the present study is that it is one of the first few to be conducted in perspective for CM implementation factors analysis.

This study examines challenges to the retrospective financial evaluation of continuous improvement (CI) activities. Through a review of the literature and active engagement with CI implementations, we identify several issues that may lead to divergence between operational and financial assessments. Out of this conflict emerges a set of concepts that we find important − the delineation of soft versus hard capacity benefits, the distinction between capacity used and capacity paid for, and the data gaps that relate to these benefits – and recognize operational improvement and financial improvement as distinct, yet interrelated, theoretical constructs. This study helps explain a series of persistent gaps in the management accounting literature: Conflict between operations and accounting managers, the divergent perspectives of Johnson and Kaplan after their publication of Relevance Lost (Johnson & Kaplan, 1987), and the need for both operational control (including detailed capacity control) and accounting control in CI firms. Instead of one control system being at odds with the other, or co-existing despite each other, each of these systems support a different component of the financial improvement process. Operational control systems in CI firms emphasize non-financial information and social and behavioral controls that empower decision-making by employees, while accounting control systems seek to motivate and translate operational gains into financial gains. Soft and hard benefits linked to capacity play an integral role in understanding the difference in focus of each control system, while data limitations help to explain why these systems remain loosely coupled in practice (or absent, as seems to be the case with detailed Capacity Management Systems).

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

This study aims to address the management of reverse flows in the context of service supply chains. The study builds on the characteristics of services production reported in literature to: identify diverse types of reverse flows in services supply chains, discuss key issues associated to the management of reverse service flows and suggest directions for research for developing the knowledge for management of reverse flows in service contexts.

This study first provides an overview of the theoretical background which supports the identification and the characterization of the flows, and the reverse flows, involved in service production. A short summary of each paper accepted in this special issue is also provided to give readers an overview of the various issues around reverse exchanges in service supply chains that authors have attempted to address.

In this study, the authors identify distinct types of reverse flows in services production building on the analysis of the characteristics of service production and delivery reported in the literature. Our discussion highlights the fact that service supply chains can be quite diverse in the type of exchanges of inputs and outputs that take place between customers and providers, showing that often there can be substantial flows of items to return. In particular, and differently from manufacturing contexts, the authors highlight that in service supply chains, providers might need to handle bi-directional reverse flows.

The lack of research on reverse service supply chains is, to a great extent, a consequence of dominant paradigms which often identify the absence of physical product flows as a key distinguishing feature of service supply chains, and therefore lead to the misbelief that in services there is nothing to return. This special issue therefore aims to clarify this misunderstanding through the limited selection of eight papers that address various issues around reverse exchanges in service supply chains.

While theoretical and empirical research in supply chain is abundant, management of reverse exchanges in service supply chain is sparse. In this special issue we aim to provide the first contribution to understand how the characteristics of service production raise new issues for the management of reverse flows in service supply chains, and to foster the development of adequate management strategies.

This paper aims to document the development of cellular manufacturing at Scania-Vabis, thereby contributing to the history of an organizational idea.

The authors draw on published sources and interviews to reconstruct the development of cellular manufacturing at Scania-Vabis and its traces.

Cellular manufacturing was applied and further developed at Scania-Vabis in the 1940s and 1950s. Nevertheless, it seems to have fallen into oblivion. The key idea resurfaced in the 1970s.

The authors argue that such “proven technology” should be considered a classical insight in organization design rather than old and thus outdated.

The authors demonstrate that this form of flow-based organizing is much older than commonly assumed and point to barriers in accumulating knowledge on organizing.