No abstract

This research is a 10-year update on the rankings of perceived relevance and quality of selected Production and Operations Management (POM) journals that was reported by Barman et al. (1991) [Journal of Operations Management 10 (2), 194-212)]. The results show some changes in the perceptions of journals over the past decade. Some journals are perceived to be extremely relevant to POM research, but not particularly of "high" quality. For other journals, the reverse is true -"high" quality is perceived but the published studies are not considered particularly relevant to POM. The Journal of Operations Management remained atop the relevance rankings and retained its position among the top three journals for quality. The study identifies factors that the respondents say influence their perception of journal quality. Finally, the paper finds some evidence that association with the editorial board of a journal affects one's perceptions of the quality and relevance of that journal.

Closed-loop supply chain research has primarily focused on discrete industries, leaving important issues involving waste disposal and re-use in process industries unaddressed. This exploratory study investigates re-use issues and practices related to process industry firms-from the producer's perspective-with the objective of identifying important issues that need further research in the field. Site visits were conducted to identify and clarify re-use issues unique to process industry firms for the purpose of developing a mail survey instrument. The mail survey provided detailed information about the sources of returned product and materials and the subsequent re-use decisions made by 141 different manufacturing facilities in a wide variety of process industries including chemicals, food, rubber, and plastics. Results indicate that process industry firms are quite diverse, that some common beliefs about re-use in process industry firms do not apply to all process types in these industries, and that research efforts are needed in the areas of network design and product acquisition; inventory; production planning and control; and scheduling. The paper concludes by identifying specific research questions important to re-use in process industry environments. #

A simple incremental cost approach to lot sizing was tested in a multilevel inventory environment. The incremental approach has not previously been tested in a large-scale study involving multiple product-structure levels. Using the Wagner-Whitin (WW) algorithm as a benchmark, the simple incremental rule (IPPA) was compared to three heuristic procedures (LFL, EOQ and POQ) frequently used in material requirements planning (MRP) lot-sizing research. The incremental rule consistently generated lower total order/setup and carrying costs than the three heuristics across the 3,200 multilevel test situations examined. In many of the test situations, the incremental rule also outperformed the WW benchmark. Subject Alms. Materhl Requirements Phnnhg, Inventory Management, and P I V~Ction/Oprmtions Management. Deckion Sciences Pol. 16 that lot sizes for items near the top of the product structure influence the quantity and time phasing of virtually all component parts at lower levels. Some researchers have studied lot sizing within this hierarchical framework [2] [4] [7] [8] [9] (101 1151 [161 1241 [251 [271 [30] [33] [351 [381, but much of the work published has concerned the minimization of inventory-related costs associated with a single item having the lumpy demand pattern typically generated by MRP [ 5 ] [ l 11 [18] [I91 POI [211 1221 [231 [291 [MI. An important performance measure in multilevel lot sizing is setup and carrying cost for the entire inventory system. Several multilevel studies published since 1980 have used total setup and carrying cost as the sole criterion variable for assessing the performance of lot-sizing methods [41 [91 [lo] (241 (251 [331 [351 [381. Recent research has attempted to broaden that criterion by including a simulation of the shop performances that would result from the lot sizes chosen [2] [7] [8] Decision Sciences [Vol. 16