Introduction; R.K.Sarin. Keynote Address; E.S. Buffa. I: Strategic Issues in Operations Management: 1. Creating Value through Operations: the Legacy of Elwood S. Buffa; M.A. Cohen, P.R. Kleindorfer. 2. Modelling in Support of Continuous Improvements towards achieving World Class Operations; E.A. Silver. 3. Design for Supply Chain Management: Concepts and Examples; H.L. Lee. 4. Competing through Quality: Perspectives and Research Directions; H. Moskowitz. 5. Service Quality Deployment: Quality Service by Design; R.S. Behara, R.B. Chase. 6. Strategic Role of Information in Services; J.A. Fitzsimmons. II: Operations Management Interfaces: 7. The Manufacturing/Marketing Interface: Critical Strategic and Tactical Linkages; W.H. Hausman, D.B. Montgomery. 8. Linking Technology and Business Strategies: a Methodological Approach and an Illustration; A.C. Hax, M. No. 9. Standardization and the Strategic Management of Technology; R.S. Rosenbloom. 10. Research in Manufacturing Strategy: a Corss-Functional Perspective; U.S. Karmarkar. 11. A Decision Analysis Approach for Coordinating Design, Manufacturing and Marketing in New Product Decisions; R.K. Sarin. III: Models for Production and Operations Planning: 12. Multi-Product Co-Production in Manufacturing and Services; G.R. Bitran, S. Dasu, S.M. Gilbert. 13. Stockless and Fast Production: Review and Research Agenda; L.J. Thomas. 14. Mathematical Models of Retailer Inventory Systems: a Review; S. Namias, S.A. Smith. 15. Recent Advances in Production and Distribution Management; A. Federgruen. 16. Performance Management Issues in Flexible Manufacturing Systems: an Analytic Perspective; A. Seidmann. 17. Models for Tightly Coupled Production Systems; K.R. Baker. 18. Dynamic Maintenance of a Deteriorating System under Uncertainty; J.B. Larsen, J.S. Dyer. 19. The Accuracy of Aggregate LP Production Planning Models; H.M. Wagner, V.A. Vargas, N.N. Kathuria. 20. Mathematical Models in Integrated Circuit Manufacturing: a Review; C.S. Tang, L. Demeester. 21. A Hierarchical Approach to Design, Planning, and Control Problems in Electronic Circuit Card Manufacturing; R.H. Ahmadi. IV: Future Directions: 22. What is Operations Management? a Perspective from the Past, a Projection for the Future; J.G. Miller. 23. Educating Managers to Compete: the Role of Operations Management; M.K. Starr. 24. The Information/Control/Buffer (I/C/B) Portfolio: an Operations Management Paradigm; L.B. Schwarz. 25. OM: Time for Meta Research; A. Reisman. 26. Redefining Operations Management around Total Quality Management; R.V. Johnson.

In the fall of 1992 a conference honoring Elwood S. Buffa was held at the Anderson Graduate School of Management of the University of California, Los Angeles. This book is a collection of the work presented at that conference. The scholars who gathered to honor El are the prominent researchers in the field of Operations Management. Their collective work published in this book represents the richness of the field and provides the reader with valuable insights into its important issues and problems. While any grouping of the articles by these distinguished scholars will be arbitrary, I have organized the book in four sections. In the first section the articles dealing with the strategic issues in Operations Management are compiled. The articles deal with continuous improvement, quality, services, supply chain management, and creating value through operations. The articles that explore the interface of Operations Management with other functional areas, e.g. engineering and marketing, are grouped in the second section. The third section of the book contains articles that attempt to model some important planning problems that arise in the management of production and operations. Some of the papers in this section provide state of the art reviews of selected topic areas. Finally, the fourth section contains articles that deal with future directions for Operations Management. The authors offer several insights into the future evolution of the field. The book begins with the keynote address given by El Buffa at the start of the conference on November 2, 1991.