Proceedings of the 2010 Industrial Engineering Research Conference A. Johnson and J. Miller, eds.

An Overview of Operations Management and its Relations with Industrial Engineering

Sergio E. Gouvea da Costa Pontifical Catholic University of Parana & Federal University of Technology - Parana Brazil Edson Pinheiro de Lima Pontifical Catholic University of Parana & Federal University of Technology - Parana Brazil Abstract
Operations Management has been primarily researched by Business Schools. Nevertheless, not only because of its roots, but also because of the areas covered and the knowledge and skills resulting from its study, Operations Management is a field close to Industrial Engineering scope and Industrial Engineers current activities. This paper reviews literature about Operations Management, from its definition to its roots, areas, research methodologies and main outlets. Then, from a definition of Industrial Engineering and a sketch of its areas and considerations about Industrial Engineers trivial work, we suggest that Industrial Engineering Departments spend more effort and incorporate Operations Management as one of its essential parts.

Keywords
Industrial engineering, operations management, OM research methodology, OM research outlets

1. Introduction
Industrial Engineers have, may be now more than ever, a significantly role in the modern word. There is a trend for them to increase their participation in the strategic planning and management control areas and lessen their involvement in the areas of operational control [1]. They are assuming a variety of positions in companies of different sectors of the economy [2]. This challenge requires people who can understand new concepts and technologies and their impact on operations and people [ibid]. Operations management, on the other hand, is a field of knowledge that deals with the management of operations [3]. This paper reviews literature concerning Operations Management (OM), from its definition, evolution, covered areas, methodologies and main outlets. Afterwards, the paper presents the areas that are frequently related to Industrial Engineering (IE), and proposes a discussion about why is IE so apart from OM, since they have more overlaps than separation.

2. The Development and Consolidation of OM as an Area

As Saladin has defined a long time ago [1], Operations management is a field of study that concerns those managerial decisions where sets of limited resources are combined together in such a manner as to be transformed into sets of desired goods and services that help meet the goals of the organization. 2.1 OM History Operations Management, as an area of study and research, was heavily consolidated with the inauguration of two academic journals dedicated to it: the Journal of Operations Management (JOM), in the US, and the International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM), in the UK. Both journals were launched in 1980. Buffa [3], in his article in Volume 1, Number 1 and page 1 of JOM, discussed that OM had evolved from a purely descriptive origin through the Management Science/Operations Research (MS/OR) phase, and is now in the process

Gouvea da Costa, S.E. and Pinheiro de Lima, E. of finding itself as a functional field of management. Voss [5] said that OM, as it was known at that time, probably had its roots in two areas: the works like the ones carried out by Taylor and Gilbreths, and in the development of Industrial Engineering. Figure 1 shows many of the influences over OM and their outcomes.

Figure 1: The development of OM Many authors, since the beginning, advocated that OM should be an area of knowledge with a sense of purpose [6], in terms of providing insight into problems of the real word, the ones engineers and managers face in their work. As Chase [7] observed, when analyzing the four journals that historically, at that time, had published most extensively with OM subjects namely, AIIE Transactions, Decision Sciences, Management Sciences and the International Journal of Production Research that the orientation (people or equipment) and emphases (from micro to macro) were heavily focused on equipment and micro analyses as, for instance, inventory control and scheduling. This picture was changed, as we will see in this literature review. 2.2 Areas of OM As presented by Buffa [3], the first call for papers announced by JOM sketched out a list of topics that defined the OM subjects. Since then, relevant studies as Miller and Graham [8], Voss [5], Amoako-Gyampah and Meredith [6], Pannirselvam et al. [9] and Gupta, Verma and Victorino [10], among others, using different approaches, were carried out looking to identify the content, new topics and trends in the field, and also to establish new research agendas. Nowadays, the scope of the journals focused on OM is considerably broader. Table 2 shows the OM areas originally presented by Buffa (1980), a compilation from [5, 6, 9, 10], and the scope declared by the Journal of Operations Management [11]. Buffa (1980) [6] Inventory Control Aggregate Planning Forecasting Scheduling Capacity Planning Purchasing Facility Location Facility Layout Table 1: OM areas / scope References [5, 6, 9, 10] JOM (2010) [11] Inventory control Operations management in process, manufacturing, and service organizations Scheduling Operations strategy and policy Process design Product and service design and development Aggregate planning Manufacturing and service systems design Services Technology management for operations Quality Multi-site operations management Operations strategy Capacity planning and analysis Project management Operations planning, scheduling and control

Gouvea da Costa, S.E. and Pinheiro de Lima, E. Process Design Maintenance and Reliability Quality Control Work Measurement Capacity planning Maintenance Facility location Facility layout Forecasting Quality of work life Purchasing Distribution Work measurement Environmental issues New product development Technology management Supply chain management Project management Human resource management for operations Work design, measurement, and improvement Performance measurement and productivity Quality management Purchasing/sourcing systems Materials and inventory management Logistics, transportation, distribution, and materials handling International and comparative operations Operations information management Regulatory and environmental issues in operation

Pilkington and Meredith [12], using a citation/co-citation analysis of all articles published in the three OM focused journals Journal of Operations Management (JOM), International Journal of Operations and Production Management (IJOPM) and Production and Operations Management (POM) between 1980 and 2006, through a factor analysis identified 12 top knowledge groups in the field (POM had its first issue published in 1992): 1. Manufacturing strategy; 2. Quality and its metrics, 3. Statistical methods; 4. Process design; 5. Services; 6. Flexibility; 7. Qualitative methods; 8. Supply chains; 9. Product/Service innovation; 10. Resource-based view; 11. Measures/Balanced Scorecard; 12. Inventory controls. The authors [12] pointed out that OM is borrowing theories from other areas beyond Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and that the field has moved away from its narrow occupation with tactical, fragmented topics toward more strategic, integrated and macro subjects []. For example, instead of studies in the tactical, stand alone areas of Inventory and Process Design, researchers are now looking at the entire Supply Chain and organization-wide Flexibility, respectively (p.198). 2.3 Research Methodologies in OM Like in any other areas, the discussion about methodology in OM was particularly important, since its beginning there was a claim that the area should be related to the practical word. Once OM had its roots in MS/OR, it was natural that during its first years, the more mathematical, analytical and simulation-based approaches were predominant. Understanding that, many authors discussed that empirical research should be appropriate for the field, once mathematical models and simulation, with their natural simplifications of the reality, wouldnt be able to capture the real circumstances related to the object of study [13]. Platts [14], in his Editorial for a Special Issue of Process Research in OM (IJOPM), differentiated scientific from engineering knowledge: in scientific knowledge predominate questions like what and why, whereas in engineering knowledge the question how to is predominant. Engineering knowledge is embodied in procedures, techniques and codes of practice. The author concluded that the field of OM had been traditionally researched with a scientific bias, and being management an applied subject, it needed an engineering / process approach, otherwise it would not provide the knowledge necessary for the manager. Table 2 presents the predominant research methodologies surveying articles published by OM researchers in the period 1982-1987 [6] and 1992-1997 [9].

Gouvea da Costa, S.E. and Pinheiro de Lima, E. Table 2: Research methodologies in OM publications Amoako-Gyampah Pannirselvam et al. Methodology and Meredith [6] [9] (%) (%) Modeling 38.02 46.89 Simulation 30.80 25.10 Survey 7.22 11.57 Theoretical / Conceptual 14.08 9.57 Case Study 4.94 4.61 Field Study 3.80 1.90 Laboratory Experimentation 1.14 0.35 Gupta et al. [10] analyzed all papers published in POM journal, since its first issue in 1992 to 2005, and the following research methodologies were found (Table 3): Table 3: Example table for demonstration Methodology Gupta et al. [10] (%) Modeling and Analytical Research 38.10 Conceptual and General 9.80 Survey Research 11.02 Field Research 8.61 Qualitative 7.14 Archival Research 5.82 Case Research 5.43 Laboratory Research 0.78 Other (POM Education and Review) 13.30 It is worth noticing that the US and the UK took different research approaches. Voss [5], after reviewing articles published in both JOM and IJOPM, presented the rank showed in Table 4. Voss [5] pointed out that, in the case of the USA, 69% of the papers fell into the category of modeling and simulation, whereas in the UK, conceptual, field and case were responsible for 80% of the papers. Table 4: Research patterns in the US and UK Rank USA UK 1 Modeling Conceptual 2 Simulation Field 3 Conceptual Survey 4 Survey Case 5 Case Modeling 6 Field Simulation 2.4 Outlets for OM Research Since the first major study of the quality of POM related journals by Saladin [14], many authors have been assessing outlets for publication in the field of OM, using different research approaches, such as surveying OM academics, practitioners and citation analysis [16-19]. In those studies, the authors analyzed POM journals in terms of their (perceived) relevance to the field and quality, arguing that such studies might be helpful even when addressing issues like faculty promotions, tenure, and salary. Once again, it is worth noticing that the perception of relevance and quality vary among US and UK researchers, as well as if they are considered POM researchers worldwide [19, 20]. Nevertheless, in terms of relevance, JOM, IJOPM and POM, followed by the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR), International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE), IIE Transactions and Production and Inventory Management may be listed, and there is a consensus that Decision Sciences, Management Science and JOM, followed by POM and IJOPM are amongst the ones with higher quality.

Gouvea da Costa, S.E. and Pinheiro de Lima, E.

3. Industrial Engineering
3.1 The IIE Definition The official definition of Industrial Engineering, from the Institute of Industrial Engineers, is: Industrial engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical, and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems. 3.2 Areas Commonly Covered and the Activities of an Industrial Engineer As Kuo [21] shows, the typical IE subjects are: Capstone design; Deterministic and stochastic optimization; Engineering economy; Ergonomics and workplace design; Facilities design; Inventory and production control; Production/manufacturing systems; Quality control; Simulation. Hicks [22], discussing the activities performed by Industrial Engineers, says that Almost always, the goal of industrial engineers is to ensure that goods and services are being produced or provided at he right time at the right cost. [] This requirement typically dictates that a practicing industrial engineer effectively uses soft as well as hard science. In the final analysis, the industrial engineers job is to make both new and existing operations to perform well (p.1.85). As can be seen from the previous literature review, it is expected nowadays that an Industrial Engineer should perform not only technical decisions and activities, but also as we may observe from the path taken by the majority of the engineers in companies understand the complexities of the decision making involving strategy, targets, cost, performance and, amidst everything, people! It was also seen that OM covers many of the areas that are dealt with IE, like Production Planning and Control, Scheduling, Inventory Management and Control, Facilities Location and Design, Simulation, Quality, Supply Chain and Logistics. So, a question is raised as why is IE so apart from the field of OM, leaving for Business Schools to take care of it. Both knowledge areas overlap each other, and it should be assumed by the two of them.

4. Concluding Remarks
This paper reviewed relevant literature concerning Operations Management. We presented its definition, areas, research methodologies and important outlets. Forthwith, Industrial Engineering definition and its areas and activities were showed. Considering the areas covered by both fields IE and OM it is clear that there are substantial overlaps. It is not a coincidence: a fundamental root for OM was precisely IE and Operations Research, an area that remained closed to IE throughout the time. And, when regarding activities that are accomplished by Industrial Engineers nowadays, it is also clear that the knowledge of how to manage operations is a crucial asset for modern Industrial Engineers. An interesting and important continuity for this research might be to survey what IE Departments are dedicating effort to research OM, and bring into light the pertinence of considering OM as a main area of Industrial Engineering.

Acknowledgement
The first author would like to acknowledge the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfico e Tecnolgico (CNPq National Council for Scientific and Technological Development/Brazil) for the funding support for his Post-Doctorate.

Gouvea da Costa, S.E. and Pinheiro de Lima, E.

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