Operations: From Factory to Service Management

Traces the historical development of operations management from its factory management origins. Explores how the subject has tried to incorporate service inspirations issues from the mid‐1970s and its association with service management in the 1980s and 1990s. There is now a significant body of knowledge on service operations management though it appears to have had only limited recognition and inclusion in the developing subject of service management. Suggests that the key challenge for operations management academics is to try to embrace the service imperative more fully into the mainstream discipline. To bring this about some operations management researchers will need to shake off their inward‐looking, efficiency‐oriented view of operations which seems to be more concerned with the application of quantitative techniques to operational subsystems rather than the design and control of operations to meet the needs of customers. Also suggests that service management academics need to ensure the inclusion, and recognition, of operations issues and perspectives into the subject. Without operations there is no means or capability of delivering service promises.