Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238

www.elsevier.com/locate/jom

Evolution of the field of operations management

Linda G. Sprague *
China Europe International Business School, 699 Hong Feng Road, Shanghai 201 206, China

Available online 18 January 2007

Abstract
This Special Issue of the Journal of Operations Management consists of 16 articles by 26 authors covering Operations
Managements (OM) topics and issues from the 16th century to the 21st with predictions for the future. While it does not pretend to
be comprehensive, it is representative of the types of subjects of inquiry through out this historical period in what could be
considered OM. This introduction attempts to put the papers in context, and concludes with comments about what might be
considered fundamental concepts which, taken as a set, can be seen as the foundations of Operations Management today.
# 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: History; Production management; Operations management; Industrial revolution

1. Introduction Morgan Swink, 2003 OM Division Program Chair,

The spark underlying the idea for this Special Issue
of the Journal of Operations Management was the 30th
Anniversary Meeting of the Operations Management
Division of the Academy of Management in 2002. Tom
Choi, then OM Division Chair, and Ken Boyer, 2002
OM Division Program Chair, invited all past Division
Chairs to attend this Meeting and participate in the
Program. Fourteen of the Past Chairs came to Denver
for the celebration and gave brief summaries of what
was going on in the Division when they were Chairs.
Most of the Chairs also participated in the Doctoral
Consortium, continuing the tales of past issues,
arguments, programs, enthusiasms and poker games.
It became clear that many of these anecdotes, stories
and even important intellectual themes – ‘‘HMMS’’ and
the ‘‘MRP Crusade’’ in particular – were unknown to
our Doctoral Students and junior Faculty. Even the not-
so-distant past was disappearing into the mists of time.
* Tel.: +86 21 2890 5160.
E-mail address: lgsprague@ceibs.edu.
agreed to offer a Session in the 2003 Meeting focused
on the history of the field. Chris Voss, Kate Blackmon
and I gave a session at that meeting on ‘‘The Evolution
of the Field of OM’’, which was very well attended. Rob
Handfield, then Editor of the Journal of Operations
Management, was there. After the session, we talked
and the result was my agreeing to serve as Guest Editor
for a Special Issue of the JOM on the Evolution of the
Field of OM. The following paragraphs are taken from
the Call for Papers for this Special Issue:
‘‘The field of Operations Management has experi-
enced substantial change – with the occasional
identity crisis – since its establishment within
manufacturing in the 19th century. Professional
organizations which have helped nourish the devel-
opment of our field are celebrating anniversaries of
their establishment, inadvertently marking a change
occasioned by retirements of well-known authors
and researchers as a ‘‘next generation’’ assumes
leadership of these organizations and begins to move
on to authorship of best-selling texts. We run the risk
of losing valuable lore and information about our

0272-6963/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jom.2007.01.001
220 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
roots without a record of people and events who laid
the foundations of our field.
This special issue of the Journal of Operations
Management (JOM) is intended to bring together a
unique combination of historical reports and
analyses about important events, turning points,
shifts in focus and intellectual developments which
have brought us to the field as we know it today. It
will also include biographical information about
significant players in the evolution of Operations
Management . . .
Given the nature of the information and analyses,
which are being sought, it is expected that unfamiliar
methodologies will necessarily be included. The
tools of the historian, even the skills of the essayist,
may be more appropriate for this particular Special
Issue. It is not likely that our typical methodologies –
survey research, hypothesis testing, causal models,
etc. – would be appropriate.’’
The 16 articles, which follow have been reviewed
and, in most cases, revised several times with
substantial help from the Reviewers. This is not a
surprise given the ‘‘unfamiliar methodologies’’ required
for this Special Issue. Colleagues who reviewed/
refereed papers for this Special Issue deserve special
commendation for their work which, as predicted,
required the ‘‘tools of the historian, even the skills of the
essayist’’ for the Reviewers as well as the Authors. I am
deeply grateful for the help provided by:
Tom Callarman, Arizona State University and China
Europe International Business School (CEIBS)
Tom Choi, Arizona State University
Chris Craighead, Auburn University
Ed Davis, The Darden School, University of Virginia
Tom Hoffman, University of Minnesota
Bob Jacobs, Indiana University
Rob Klassen, Western Ontario University
Paul Kleindorfer, University of Pennsylvania
Sam Mantel, University of Cincinnati
Jack Meredith, Wake Forest University
Tim Smunt, Wake Forest University
Marty Starr, Rollins College
Tom Vollmann, IMD, Switzerland
There were other Reviewers as well: many authors
sent their work to colleagues for review before
submitting them for the Special Issue and also did this
during revisions.
The organization of these papers is roughly
chronologic, from the 16th century, ending with a
prognosis. The Industrial Revolution, and the works of
Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford are mentioned here
but not emphasized: this is territory already relatively
well documented, including within our own journals—
see, for example, Abernathy and Corcoran (1983) in the
third volume of the JOM.
2. The 16th century through the 19th century
Voss (2007) introduces a 16th century text – Agricola,
1556 – which remains in print today. The English
translation was done by Herbert and Lou Hoover—yes,
that is U.S. President Herbert Hoover who was a well-
known mining engineer before (and after) his term as
President which began in 1920 (Hoover and Hoover,
1950). His wife Lou was also a geologist. Voss argues that
De Re Metallica can be understood as the operations
management text of its era. This unique work describes
‘‘. . . the technical aspects of mining and metallurgy . . .
[and] the organization, management issues and tools to be
used.’’ From an analysis of the content of the 16th century
work, Voss offers a ‘‘possible medieval MBA curricu-
lum’’ as well as a comparison of Hayes’ and Wheel-
wright’s (1984) and Hill’s (1989) characterization of
‘‘20th century continuous flow processes’’ with ‘‘mining
and metal processing as described by Agricola’’.
De Re Metallica describes familiar processes and
structures and displays a dedication to empirical research
and data collection, predating by four centuries aspects
of Frederick W. Taylor’s Scientific Management (1911).
Lewis (2007) brings us to the 19th century with an
analysis of the works of Charles Babbage (1791–1871).
Echoing Voss, Lewis reminds us again that much of what
we know about Operations Management has been known
and practiced but then, too often, forgotten and re-
invented during the Industrial Revolution and once again
in our times. The most widely known of Babbage’s
substantial body of work is his On the Economy of
Machinery and Manufactures, originally published in
London in 1832 and revised and reprinted by Babbage
several times during his lifetime (Babbage, 1832).
Lewis is particularly focused on ‘‘reclaiming’’
Babbage as an OM pioneer. Babbage is recognized
today primarily as a computer pioneer because of his
dedication to the development of difference engines and
an analytic engine. He was plagued with technical
problems in the construction of the actual devices and
experienced serious problems financing and managing
the design and development project. Success was finally
achieved in 1991 – the 200th anniversary of his birth –
when the London Science Museum undertook the
construction of a replica of what Babbage had intended
to build. It worked.
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
Lewis’ ‘‘Babbage in context’’ offers a brief yet
dramatic summary of the impact of the Industrial
Revolution on 19th century England. As Voss has done,
Lewis offers a concordance of chapters in On the
Economy of Machinery and Manufactures against
Hayes and Wheelwright’s (1984) and Prentice’s
(1987) taxonomies. Lewis also links Babbage’s work
with Adam Smith’s 1776 Enquiry into the Nature and
Causes of the Wealth of Nations—arguably the opening
salvo of what would become the Industrial Revolution.
Concluding his work to ‘‘reclaim’’ Babbage for
Operations Management, Lewis argues that by the
middle of the 19th century, the primary drivers of the
Industrial Revolution had shifted to America while
Babbage continued to work alone, lacking the ‘‘small
army of advocates/consultants’’ who surrounded and
championed Taylor by the end of the 19th century.
Balakrishnan et al. (2007) provide an examination of
three centuries of evolution of manufacturing in
Canada, beginning with fundamental data about the
country, which lays the foundation for the rest of their
work. Canada is larger than its southern neighbor in
terms of geography; its population density, however, has
remained sparse compared with the continental U.S.
The authors develop an overview of the growth of
manufacturing as well as first-sector activity in mining
and agriculture (including forestry) in the country,
noting the impact of the U.S. and the U.K. on these
developments. The authors include information about
the development of the country’s transportation and
financial sectors—the infrastructure required to support
the developments in manufacturing.
Canada’s industrial growth in the 19th century is
described as a ‘‘. . . move from small-scale to large-scale
industry’’ although the authors note that most of the output
was for domestic consumption. Organized labor began
in the late 19th century, with the ultimate development
of labor unions ‘‘. . . different from that of the U.S. for
a variety of reasons including more decentralization
in government, Canada’s French heritage and its
connections with the U.K.’’ The authors note that, ‘‘Even
today, Canada remains more unionized that the U.S.’’
In the 20th century, Canadian manufacturing and
agriculture was deeply affected by the World Wars. The
authors note that ‘‘After the end of [World War II],
Canada and the U.S. prospered as they were among the
few industrialized countries whose infrastructure had
not been destroyed by the conflict.’’
Balakrishnan et al. (2007) conclude with comments
directed at nations undergoing development, suggesting
the advisability of their studying lessons to be learned
from Canada’s experiences: ‘‘Canadian governments
221
and their agencies have been successful in the global
marketplace, thus providing direction for others to
follow’’.
Brown and Hyer (2007) describe a ‘‘. . . little-known
but pioneering service system used by Fred Harvey
more than a quarter of a century before the era of
[Taylor’s] Scientific Management, and almost 100 years
before McDonald’s demonstrated the value of produc-
tion-line thinking in a service environment.’’ Taking
benchmarking as their theme for the analysis of the
Harvey System, their literature research led them to
focus on the service profit chain (Heskett et al., 1994) as
their framework for analysis.
Fred Harvey developed and managed a system for
providing meals for passengers traveling on the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe (ATSF) railroad. Orders
for these meals were telegraphed ahead to the water/
coal stops required by the steam engines of the time. By
agreement with the ATSF, Fred Harvey had exactly 30
minutes to feed all of the train’s passengers in his
restaurants at each stop. Brown and Hyer are able to
map each element of the 1994 service profit chain onto a
matching parallel taken from the mid-19th century
Harvey system. Hence, the title archeological bench-
marking—using an historic system to demonstrate
principles ‘‘discovered’’ in the late 20th century.
For classroom use, try using a clip from the 1946
MGM movie musical The Harvey Girls (starring Judy
Garland, Ray Bolger and Angela Lansbury). The song
‘‘Perfection’’ describes in song and dance some
elements of the Harvey System—standardization and
careful attention to details in order to maintain a high
and consistent level of quality, which ultimately leads to
profitability.
3. The Industrial Revolution
When did the Industrial Revolution begin? The date
of its onset is a matter of opinion rather than fact: my
choice is 1776 for three reasons:
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
James Watts’ Steam Engine
The American Revolution
Lewis (2007) has already pointed out some of Smith’s
concepts upon which Babbage developed some of his
work. James Watts introduced a steam engine, which was
powerful and reliable enough to be a commercial success.
Across the Atlantic, the American revolt against Great
Britain began with the publication of the Declaration of
Independence. These three concurrent events were each
222 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
soon recognized as revolutionary in nature. We live today
with the continuing consequences.
Smith (1991/1776) popularized the concept of the
division (and specialization) of labor, laying down a
foundation for the standardization of parts, to a very
wide audience. Watts’ inventions occasioned great
improvements in agriculture and transportation, while
his experiment-based methods influenced the develop-
ment of manufacturing technologies. The American
Revolution helped ensure that American industry would
not be closely bound – through organizational structures
or through manufacturing methods – to the traditional
structures and practices in Great Britain.
Brown and Hyer (2007) show that, more than a half-
century before Taylor’s formal introduction of his
Scientific Management in 1911, many of his ideas were
being put into practice in the U.S. by Fred Harvey.
Balakrishnan et al. (2007), although focused on
manufacturing in Canada, note that ‘‘. . . Samuel
Cunard who founded the great ocean line company
Cunard Lines in 1839, felt that if you picked your
employees well, paid them well, and treated them well,
they would return the favour with loyalty and pride’’—
another example of archeological benchmarking.
Standardization and specialization were part of the
Harvey’s System, as well as a focus on management’s
responsibility for the care and training of the workforce.
For those who have not studied Scientific Management
recently, here is a reminder: Taylor’s First Principle:
‘‘The principal object of management should be to
secure the maximum prosperity for the employer,
coupled with the maximum prosperity for each
employé.’’ (Taylor, 1911/1998, page 1)
Smith, Babbage and Taylor are exemplars of a
widespread phenomenon during the 19th and into the
early 20th century. Great Britain used the steam engine
to revolutionize transportation and agriculture; the U.S.
did likewise but also offered the Homestead Act.
Meanwhile, developments in the structure and manage-
ment of manufacturing prevailed in the U.S.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME) was an organization critical to these develop-
ments. At a time when Frederick Taylor and Carl Barth,
were working on the machine feed and speed tables
which would revolutionize the machine tool industry, in
1885, Captain Henry Metcalfe from a U.S. Army
Arsenal spoke at an ASME meeting on ‘‘The Shop-
order System of Accounts’’:
‘‘Let us imagine the art of music before its notation
was devised. Think of the strains which might have
been immortal, but which died as voices die, and
were lost. Imagine the effort beginning afresh with
each new learner of each new tune, enlarging his own
experience merely and leaving no vestige to guide
another’s way . . .
Now, administration without records is like music
without notes—by ear. Good as far as it goes – which
is but a little way – it bequeaths nothing to the future.
I used to think that only government workshops
suffered from circumlocution, and took it for granted
that private establishments had simple and direct
methods of procuring supplies, of keeping track of
work in progress and or determining its cost when
done. But . . . I found that much had been sacrificed
to immediate advantage; that records were too often
kept by memory . . . I found . . . trade based on costs
determined . . . by ‘thumb-sailing’: large establish-
ments suffering from the competition of ignorant
free lances, who in ruining themselves also injured
their neighbors.’’ (Metcalfe, 1885, pp. 440–441)
This plea for sound data was followed by a
description of his own ‘‘Shop-Order System’’, describ-
ing ‘‘Shop-order tickets, or warrants of expense . . .
[and] material cards’’, predating Taylor’s Scientific
Management by several decades.
Metcalfe’s paper was followed by a brief discussion
by F.W. Taylor from the Midvale Steel Co. While
agreeing that ‘‘. . . the authority for doing all kinds of
work should proceed from one central office to the
various departments . . .’’, Taylor criticized at the detail
level: ‘‘We have found that any record which passes
through the average workman’s hands . . . is apt to either
be soiled or torn’’ (Taylor, 1885). Taylor recommended
having clerks in small offices supporting small work-
shops and, in particular, carrying clean paperwork to
and from the central office.
The ASME was, in the 19th and early 20th centuries,
the center for debate and discussion about manufactur-
ing and factory management, experimentation, account-
ing rules and procedures, The Transactions of the ASME
served as the journal, magazine and newsletter for the
engineers (most not graduates of university-based
programs) who were doing the work of the Industrial
Revolution. It was not until the appearance of Factory
Magazine in 1895 that those more interested in
manufacturing organization and management began
to move away from the engineering disciplines, which
were becoming increasingly university-based. A.W.
Shaw, the publisher of Factory Magazine, in coopera-
tion with the Harvard Business School, brought out the
first issue of the Harvard Business Review in 1922.
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
In the 19th and early 20th century, Harvey, Metcalfe
and Taylor were not the only people concerned about
efficiency and quality. In the U.K. in 1869, Mrs. Isabella
Beeton’s Book of Household Management was inspired
by the fact that the population was moving from
agricultural villages to the cities (Beeton, 1869). ‘‘Now
that the average household was dependent not on the
farmer but the greengrocer and baker for its provisions,
the opportunities for contamination were legion. A
series of investigations by the Lancet between 1851 and
1854 has revealed to a horrified nation that a whole
range of its staple foods were routinely watered down,
bulked out, tinted up and, by a whole series of slights of
hand, turned into something they were not.’’ (Hughes,
2006, 94)
In addition to instructions for safe purchasing and
preparation of foods, Beeton’s Book of Household
Management included ‘‘a history, description, proper-
ties, and uses of every article directly or indirectly
connected with the Household.’’ (Hughes, 2006, 193)
By the late Victorian era, households in Great Britain
were increasingly without staff and/or large numbers of
family members to handle the household responsibil-
ities. Mrs. Beeton provided technical training, including
the need for and the use of measurements for recipes.
In the U.S., Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Boston Cooking-
School Cook Book (Farmer, 1997/1896) and the
Settlement Cook Book 1903 (Kander and Schoenfeld,
1987/1903) offered American households similar
information, with substantially more attention to the
details of standard products, measurements and
procedures, as well as etiquette.
Today the Industrial Revolution remains lively as
basic principles are increasingly improved and applied
throughout the world—and are often re-packaged under
new names.
4. The early 20th century
The Wharton School was established in 1881—the
first business school. In 1900, the Amos Tuck School at
Dartmouth College opened the first graduate business
school. The Harvard Business School followed in 1908
on the main campus, moving to the present campus in
1926. Over the following decades, most state universities
in the U.S. formed business departments, which typically
evolved into business schools. MBA programs in the
U.K. and Europe started up after World War II. All of
these programs typically required a Production Manage-
ment (or Factory Management) course.
Exhibit 1 shows the syllabus from the first Industrial
Organization course taught at the Harvard Business
223
School in 1908—its first year. This syllabus (with minor
changes) was used for 8 years. Exhibit 2 shows the
course description for the Industrial Management
course, which was used from 1916 to 1924. These
documents do not show the company visits with reports
to the class which were also used: small teams of
students visited factories, banks, department stores,
insurance companies and railroads, and reported back to
their classmates for discussion—precursors of the case
method. Frederick Taylor and Carl Barth provided
lectures at the Harvard Business School until 1912 when
Taylor’s book The Principles of Scientific Management
became available and was then a required text.
Exhibits 1 and 2 are in a different style of syllabus
from what is in common use today. At the outset, no
texts were available, hence the early reliance on visitors
and visits, with faculty presenting lectures based on
their previous expertise. Exhibit 2 shows the beginning
of a change in style: this is the beginning of the
development of a body of knowledge. The theme is
consistent with Taylor’s and the Gilbreths’ approach—
‘‘Knowledge’’ and ‘‘A respect for Facts as a basis of
action’’.
Taylor, Ford and the Gilbreths are the names
associated with the Industrial Revolution in the U.S.
in the early 20th century. Kanigel’s (1997) biography of
Taylor provides an excellent rendition of his personal
and professional lives, without the diatribes and
misinformation about him and his Scientific Manage-
ment which were promulgated, largely by the unions,
during his life and are often still repeated.
Frederick Taylor and Carl Barth spent more than two
decades studying machines as no others ever had.
Publication of their machine feed and speed tables –
coupled with their designs for specialized slide rules –
revolutionized that industry. The motivation behind
their decades of study was to provide workers and
management with the knowledge required to discover
the one best way to do each job. Their work was
intended to distinguish factors, which were – and were
not – under the control of the worker, substantially pre-
dating Deming’s ‘‘general and special causes’’. This
scientific approach was consistent with the work of
Watts, Fulton, Babbage et al.
The Industrial Revolution began with a focus on
harnessing mechanical advantage to the service of
industry. Taylor’s and Barth’s work on machine speed
and feed tables was an extension of this foundation. But
with his Scientific Management, Taylor introduced a
new focus—from study of machinery to study of
workers, their work and management. Drucker called
this the Productivity Revolution:
224 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238

Exhibit 1.
L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238 225

Exhibit 2.
226 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
‘‘For a hundred years . . . knowledge was applied to
tools, processes, products. This created the Industrial
Revolution. But it also created what Marx called
‘alienation’ and new classes and class war, and with
it Communism. In its second phase, beginning
around 1880 and culminating around World War II,
knowledge in its new meaning came to be applied to
work. This ushered in the Productivity Revolution
which in 75 years converted the proletarian into a
middle-class bourgeois with near-upper-class
income. The Productivity Revolution thus defeated
class war and Communism.’’ (Drucker, 1993, p. 18)
Drucker goes further and credits Taylorism with the
Allies’ success in World War II:
‘‘Taylor’s axiom that all manual work, skilled or
unskilled, could be analyzed and organized by the
application of knowledge seemed preposterous to his
contemporaries. And that there is a mystique to craft
skill was universally accepted for many, many years.
This belief still encouraged Hitler in 1941 to
declare war on the United States. For the latter to field
an effective force in Europe would require a large fleet
to transport troops. America at that time had almost no
merchant marine and no destroyers to protect it.
Modern war, Hitler further argued, required precision
optics and in large quantities; and there were no skilled
optical workers in America.
Hitler was absolutely right. The United States did
not have much of a merchant marine and its
destroyers were few and ludicrously obsolete. It
also had almost no optical industry. But by applying
Taylor’s ‘task study’ the United States learned how
to train totally unskilled workers, many of them
former sharecroppers raised in a pre-industrial
environment, and converted them in 60 or 90 days
into first-rate welders and shipbuilders. The United
States equally trained within a few months the same
kind of people to turn out precision optics to better
quality than the Germans ever did—and on an
assembly line to boot.’’ (Drucker, 1993, p. 33)
Drucker went further regarding Taylor’s impact:
‘‘‘Darwin, Marx, Freud’ is the trinity often cited as
the ‘makers of the modern world’. Marx would be
taken out and replaced by Taylor if there were any
justice in the world.’’ (Drucker, 1993, p. 33)
Drucker gave credit to Taylor for inventing
‘‘management’’ as we know it today because Taylor
was convinced that management was as much in need of
education and training as was the workforce. For Taylor,
birthright, class, wealth and status had nothing to do
with management capability: like the worker’s task, it
was amenable to analysis, capable of continuous
improvement, and could be taught. For many years, a
basic text for the earliest business schools was Taylor’s
The Principles of Scientific Management.
The Gilbreths were a unique combination of Frank –
an engineer and Lillian – a psychologist. They worked
with Taylor for a time, later together until Frank
Gilbreth’s death. Lillian went on with their work for
decades and was active in the foundation of the Institute
for Industrial Engineering (IIE) and in the Work
Simplification Movement. Chase and Apte (2007)
describe briefly the impact of her work and her seminal
book (Gilbreth, 1914).
Henry Ford’s automobile assembly line is an icon of
manufacturing industry—never mind that it is techni-
cally assembly not manufacturing. With all its faults
(real and imagined), the assembly line remains the
primary scheme by which consumer goods are
produced. In recent years, it has evolved from ‘‘Any
color, as long as it’s black’’ to the current ‘‘mixed model
scheduling’’ and ‘‘mass customization’’. Before think-
ing that ‘‘mass customization’’ is a 20th century
breakthrough, consider the 2000-year-old Terracotta
Soldiers in Xian, China. More than 7000 soldiers guard
the Emperor Qin Shihuang’s tomb – each a replica of a
different member of the Emperor’s army, each with his
unique face, hair style, stature, armor and insignia –
created by three factories working for a decade while
others built the Emperor’s tomb.
Henry Ford’s 1926 book Today and Tomorrow (Ford,
2003/1988/1926) came after his construction and
operation of the famed River Rouge plant. He describes
his basic contribution as ‘‘. . . to keep everything in
motion and take the work to the man and not the man to
the work. That is the real principle of our production, and
conveyors are only one of the means to an end.’’ (p. 103)
Consistent with Taylor’s ‘‘First Principle’’ –
although Ford claimed to know nothing of Taylor
and his work – Ford includes the following rationale for
his work: ‘‘One’s own employees ought to be one’s own
best customers.’’ (Ford, 2003/1988/1926, p. 9)
After championing standardization, cleanliness and
interchangeable parts, Ford offered Chapter 8: Learning
from Waste:
‘‘My theory of waste goes back of the thing itself into
the labour of producing it. We want to get full value
out of labour so that we may be able to pay it full
value. It is use – not conservation – that interests us.
We want to use material to its utmost in order that the
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
time of men may not be lost. Materials cost nothing.
It is of no account until it comes into the hands of
management . . .
Saving material because it is material, and saving
material because it represents labour might seem to
amount to the same thing. But the approach makes a
deal of difference. We will use material more
carefully if we think of it as labour.’’ (Ford, 2003/
1988/1926, p. 83)
It is no surprise why, more than 50 years later, Taiichi
Ohno would devote an entire chapter to ‘‘The True
Intention of the Ford System’’ in his book Toyota
Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production
(1988/1978). While emphasizing differences between
Ford’s system (as described in 1926) and Toyota’s,
Ohno gives credit where due:
‘‘It was Ford who perfected the automobile industry
. . . Ford thought flexibly about things without getting
caught in existing concepts . . .
As Ford pointed out, people follow tradition. This
might be acceptable in private life, but in industry
outdated customs must be eliminated. In this process
of asking why, we see vividly one facet of Ford’s
business spirit . . .
I have always tried to view things upside down.
Reading Ford, I was encouraged by the way he
repeatedly came up with brilliant inverse concep-
tions.’’ (Ohno 1978/1988, pp. 105–107)
The famed Toyota Production System is derived
from principles laid down by Ford and improved upon
by Ohno.
Time-based competition is viewed as a relatively
modern notion. Stalk and Hout’s (1990) book Compet-
ing Against Time is typically regarded as replication and
proof of Forrester’s 1961 Industrial Dynamics. The
question was whether the limitations under which
Forrester worked in the late 1950s with only 2nd
generation computers and crude software capability had
affected his results. It should be noted that Forrester’s
insights changed the nature of knowledge and under-
standing of the dynamics of manufacturing and
distribution systems. However, here is a comment
about The Meaning of Time from Ford’s 1926 book:
‘‘The time element in manufacturing stretches from
the moment the raw material is separated from the
earth to the moment when the finished product is
delivered to the ultimate consumer. It involves all
forms of transportation and has to be considered in
227
every national scheme of service. It is a method of
saving and serving which ranks with the application
of power and the division of labour . . .
It is not possible to repeat too often that waste is
not something, which comes after the fact. Restoring
an ill body to health is an achievement, but
preventing illness is a much higher achievement.
Picking up and reclaiming the scrap left over after
production is a pubic service, but planning so that
there will be no scrap is a higher public service.’’
(Ford, 2003, pp. 112–113)
5. Post WWII Production Management1
After the U.S. entered World War II in December
1941, American manufacturing and its management was
able to shift from commercial to military production
throughout the country in a matter of months. As did
many American universities, the Harvard Business
School went on a War footing, training production
managers and project managers for military production
jobs as well as general managers for the military, and for
factories, which had been converted to War production.
Faculty within Harvard’s Production Area who had been
working in Personnel Management (see the Hawthorne
Studies) became a separate group in charge of related
courses in Administration and Personnel. At the end of
the War, there were separate areas for Production and
what would become the Human Relations and then the
Organizational Behavior Area.
The G.I2. Bill (a guarantee that the U.S. Government
would pay tuition for higher education for all WWII
veterans) occasioned dramatic growth in the country’s
universities, including growth in engineering and
business departments and schools. By the 1950s,
concerns began to grow about the quality of faculty
and the content of curricula in business schools.
Industrial Administration had become Factory Manage-
ment in the 1920s, Production Management in the 1930s
and throughout the War. Production Management
Faculty ranks were often dominated by retired or active
factory managers, most with engineering backgrounds;
very few Production Faculty held advanced degrees.
In 1959, two entirely independent reports from the
Carnegie Foundation and the Ford Foundation appeared
1
Thanks to Prof. Martin K. Starr (2006) for details of the Ford
Foundation’s and the Carnegie Foundation’s reports.
2
G.I. stands for Government Issue, the mark stamped on all cloth-
ing, equipment and weapons issued to American soldiers during
World War II; G.I. Joe became the nickname for any U.S. soldier.
228 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
within weeks of one another—The Education of
American Businessmen by Pierson (1959) and Higher
Education for Business by Gordon and Howell (1959).
The two independent reports were remarkably similar in
their conclusions: first, that a sound education in
business was required for the long-term well-being of
the nation but that this was not happening; second, that
schools of business needed to change their goals and
methods in fundamental ways. These reports rapidly
transformed the landscape for business schools and had
a significant impact on Production Management
departments and areas. At the outset, Production
Faculty began teaching introductory math and statistics
courses, taking advantage of their technical back-
grounds.
Some of the specific criticisms of the two reports
were:
standards were too low;
admission requirements were too low;
business curricula were too narrow;
foundation courses in math and statistics were
neglected;
foundation courses in the social sciences and the
humanities were neglected;
better faculty were required;
faculty research was second-rate;
faculty teaching was substandard.
The coincidence in timing of two significant reports
on business education has not been specifically
explained. The likely catalyst was the USSR’s
successful launch of Sputnik I on 04 October 1957—
an event which shocked the U.S. The U.S. Space
Program had suffered repeated failures getting launched
vehicles into orbit. The country’s engineering and
business education was held to be deficient, with
business education seen as the primary culprit.
The Carnegie and Ford reports forced schools of
business to significantly change course. This was the
beginning of Operations Research and Management
Science being incorporated into business curricula.
Industrial Engineering and Production specialists began
moving from engineering schools to the business
schools, typically joining Production Management
departments.
Singhal and Singhal (2007) describe the seminal
work by Holt, Modigliani, Muth and Simon – work
which was first published by three of the authors in 1955
(Holt et al., 1955) in the second issue of Management
Science. Muth was added to the team for publication of
the book in 1960, leading to the nickname ‘‘HMMS’’
for this classic work (Holt et al., 1960). These authors
were engineers and economists at the Graduate School
of Industrial Administration (GSIA) at what was then
the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
In his autobiography when he was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978, Simon reported that,
when it was established in 1949, the goal of the GSIA
was ‘‘. . . to place business education on a foundation of
fundamental studies in economics and the behavioral
science’’ (Simon, 1978). This was completely consis-
tent with – and pre-dated – the improvements
recommended by the 1959 Carnegie and Ford reports.
Singhal and Singhal (2007) report that ‘‘Holt et al.’s
work and its visibility led to a renaissance of the field of
Operations Management, as we know it today.’’ In a
work first presented at a Special Fellows Session
celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Decision
Sciences Institute, Sprague et al. (1990) identified Holt
et al.’s efforts as Exemplar for the field, ‘‘. . . seminal
[and to] remain a standard of excellence by which
current research [could be judged].
In this issue, Singhal and Singhal (2007) provide
background details for the HMMS work by four authors
two of whom won Nobel prizes and one of whom had a
Nobel Committee championing his cause. Also in this
issue, Skinner (2007) describes some of the impact of
the sea change at the Harvard Business School in the
wake of the Carnegie Foundation and Ford Foundation
report.
6. Professional production management
In their biographical article on Elwood Buffa (1923–
2005), Singhal et al. (2007) report the outstanding
career of a remarkable colleague. They briefly trace the
history of the field before Buffa received his MBA
degree from the University of Wisconsin, follow his
career in parallel with developments in both traditional
Production Management and the then developing fields
of Operations Research and Management Science
(ORMS). Buffa’s first edition of Modern Production
Management was published in 1961, then substantially
revised in 1969. These books became the bibles for a
generation of business school students majoring in
Production Management. Buffa was an early proponent
of computer technologies for production management
as well as for related research.
Wickham Skinner joined the MBA program at the
Harvard Business School in 1946, then had a successful
career at Honeywell, working management positions in
production, marketing and sales, and divisional finance.
His fascination with why and how organizations worked
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
led him to return to the Harvard Business School in
1958, joining their doctoral program and graduating just
as business schools were responding to the Carnegie and
Ford reports. In his article for this issue, Skinner (2007)
describes his career as a teacher and a researcher, and
explains how this combination led to his development of
the concept of Manufacturing Strategy. He also reports
some details of the tensions (and their resolution)
between the traditional Production Management
Faculty and the newer ‘‘quantitative’’ Faculty at the
Harvard Business School—a story, which could be told
also of most business schools throughout the U.S.
The American Production and Inventory Society
(APICS – now formally known as APICS – The
Association for Operations Management) has played an
important role in the evolution of the field. Founded
in 1957 by ‘‘practitioners’’ – middle managers and
consultants in production and inventory control – the
compelling theme of APICS’ early efforts was
recognition of the professional skills required of people
working in production and inventory control. Lummus
(2007) describes the development of this professional
society with particular emphasis on the organization’s
Certification Programs. As efforts towards Certification
evolved, increasing numbers of Faculty joined and were
(and still are) active participants in the determination of
Certifications, design and control of the examinations
and the APICS Dictionaries.
The designation Practitioner (which is how APICS-
certified members describe themselves) is probably best
understood through this comment by Orlicky (1975):
‘‘. . . the subject of production and inventory
management is vocational in the sense that the
knowledge is intended to be applied for solving real-
life business problems’’ (p. ix)
While business schools responded to the criticisms
of the Carnegie and Ford reports by hiring graduates
of doctoral programs, industry was in increasing need
for people trained in the wide variety of operational
jobs required for modern manufacturing management.
The APICS organization provided a middle ground for
everyone involved. Faculty joined APICS for contacts
with local companies leading to opportunities for
plant tours, production professionals visiting classes
and case-writing and research projects, as well as
service on APICS committees and job placement for
graduating students. APICS’ Certified Practitioner
members now receive recognition as the professionals
they have become. As Lummus reports, ‘‘Since 1973,
more than 80,000 individuals have earned the CPIM
(Certified Practitioner in Inventory Management)
229
designation with more than 3000 at the higher Fellow
level.’’
APICS led the MRP Crusade – a campaign begun
through two IBM – sponsored seminars introducing
Production Management Faculty to the newest software
package to support manufacturing operations. Mabert
(2007) describes the early days of production and
inventory control and the ‘‘early road’’ to material
requirements planning—including the MRP Crusade.
While best known for its sending the Faculty ‘‘MRP
Mafia’’ on the road to local APICS meetings throughout
the country, these Faculty also ran MRP Workshops at
Annual and Regional Meetings of the (then) American
Institute for Decision Sciences, later known as the
Decision Sciences Institute. (DSI) Photographs of the
1974 and 1975 Seminar participants are remarkable in
that most of the people shown are still well known in the
profession today. Seven of the people in these photo-
graphs wrote for and/or reviewed for this Special Issue.
Mabert (2007) summarizes the impact of the MRP
Crusades with data on installations, enhancements and
innovations. The legend on the T-shirts (‘‘Copernicus
lives!’’) in Mabert’s Figure 7 is true: the introduction of
MRP was indeed revolutionary, although it is not clear
that the impact was as great as was the original
Copernican Revolution. The slogan comes from a
famous (and frequently given) lecture by Joe
Orlicky—‘‘The Copernican Revolution in Production
and Inventory Control’’. This lecture included dispara-
ging comments about the Economic Order Quantity,
linking it with views on the solar system before
Copernicus’ revolutionary notion of the planets in orbit
around the sun.
Jacobs and Weston (2007) examine the evolution of
the early MRP systems into current ERP systems
through interviews with key players in the early
developments of MRPII through their evolution into
the ERP systems, which are available today. They trace
improvements and innovations in hardware and soft-
ware, which have made these modern packages
possible. Jacobs and Weston provide information from
interviews with early and important players in the
evolutionary developments. Ed McVarney, founder of
J.D. Edwards, Rick Allen, former VP of Finance and
Administration at J.D. Edwards and Rick Snow, former
Chief Legal Counsel of J.D. Edwards provided
information about the organizational goings-on in
2002–2003, which resulted in the major consolidation
of the ERP industry. Bill Robinson, an IBM Industry
Consultant in the mid-1980’s offered insights on the
MAPICS era. They also report on the Faculty Work-
shops organized for Annual Meetings of the Decision
230 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
Sciences Institute (DSI). There were six attendees at the
first session in 1997. By 1999, the Annual Meeting of
the DSI included an ERP Track, which included vendor
workshop presentations.
7. Operations management
While manufacturing strategy and computer-based
support for manufacturing operations were evolving,
something else was underway—a growing realization
that the U.S. economy was beginning an epic shift. The
country’s workforce was moving from the manufactur-
ing sector to the service (tertiary) sector. Health care,
financial services, transportation, restaurants, etc., were
accounting for more and more of the country’s GDP.
And it seemed that, while the U.S. was in the forefront
of this trend, other developed nations were experiencing
similar shifts. Heineke and Davis (2007) show the
percentage of the workforce in the third sector since
1960 for 10 developed countries. See their Table 1.
The first academic attention to this matter was from
economists. And, industrial Engineers had done
projects as early as Frank and Lillian Gilbreth’s study
of the tonsillectomies of most of their 12 children in
order to analyze the process and make improvements
(see Gilbreth and Carey (2002/1948), Chapter 10—
Motion Study Tonsils). But, before 1970, there were no
business school courses or textbooks focused on this
rapidly growing phenomenon. Heineke and Davis
(2007) trace ‘‘The development of service operations
management as an academic discipline’’, beginning
with sequences of ‘‘Change in Emphasis on Types of
Services in an Economy’’. (Table 2) In addition to the
expected restaurant and hospitality businesses, they
focus also on the role of the U.S. Interstate System,
which created needs for additional services while
supporting commerce and manufacturing.
Heineke and Davis (2007) provide a ‘‘Content
Emphasis of Research and Teaching Materials in Service
Operations’’ (Table 3). This chronological summary
makes clear shifts in emphasis from 1972 to 2003, which
have made possible and supported the substantial growth
in service operations courses and curricula. Their work
also helps explain the evolution of Production Manage-
ment through Production and Operations Management to
today’s Operations Management.
While explicit interest in service operations has been
late in coming, this does not necessarily mean that it was
completely ignored. Below is the Harvard Business
School’s 1908–1909 catalogue copy for the required
Industrial Organization course. Emphasis has been
added:
‘‘A study is made in this course of the principles
underlying the modern organization of business and
of the recent applications of system. A brief
introduction outlines the present tendencies of
industrial organization in the light of its historical
development and indicates the forms and problems
of the division of labor. This leads up to a study of the
modern factory methods of production . . . A series of
concretely presented illustrations of modern practice
in factory management accompanies and follows the
exposition of the subject. The principles of organiza-
tion, carefully elucidated in connection with the
factory, are then traced in some of their wide
applications to other forms of business enterprise.’’
(Harvard Business School Baker Library Archives)
Chase and Apte (2007) address the same topic from a
different perspective, focusing on the big ideas, which
have proven ‘‘influential in setting the research agenda
in service operations.’’ Noting that ‘‘. . . the penetration
of service operations studies has remained surprisingly
low until recently’’, they suggest that ‘‘research and
teaching in operations management has been biased
towards manufacturing.’’ On the bright side, they report
the formation of the College of Service Operations
within the Production and Operations Management
Society and the initiation of a Service Enterprise
Engineering Program within the National Science
Foundation (NSF), as well as IBM’s Service Science,
Management and Engineering (SSME) initiative. Their
‘‘History of Research in Service Operations: Big Ideas’’
(Table 1) includes a forecast for what will be the big
ideas for the 21st century.
Taken together, the works by Heineke and Davis
(2007) and by Chase and Apte (2007) provide two
perspectives on the fairly recent evolution of service
operations management, one focused on the big ideas,
the other on the development of the field in business
schools. Heineke and Davis (2007) quote Chase at the
2004 Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute
in Boston:
‘‘Eighty percent of the United States’ economy is in
services, but 80% of the core or required courses in
operations management is still focused heavily, if not
entirely, on manufacturing.’’
Heineke and Davis conclude with an interesting
thought for the future:
‘‘The challenges, therefore, still exist to continue the
development of the field of service operations, both
from a research and teaching perspective—perhaps
even to the point where every business school has
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
service operations management as a required course
and the traditional manufacturing course in opera-
tions is offered as an elective.
Returning to matters manufacturing, Watson, Black-
stone and Gardiner (2007) review the 25-year evolution
of the Theory of Constraints (TOC). Their work is
organized along a ‘‘Timeline of major eras in the
development of TOC’’ See their Figure 1. The five
stages of development and evolution are described as:
1979–1984 The OPT Era
1985–1990 Drum-Buffer-Rope
1991–1994 TOC Measurement
1995–1997 Thinking Process
1998–2005 Project Management
The sixth era is described as emerging ‘‘. . . poised to
transition from a niche to mainstream . . . [and] . . .
preparing for this transfer of leadership.’’ (Watson et al.,
2007) This work examines ‘‘deficiencies with the
techniques developed during the previous five eras . . . in
the vein of constructive criticism . . .’’ with the objective
of addressing them in order ‘‘. . . to gain the elusive
mainstream acceptance its proponents and creator
believe it deserves.’’ (Watson et al., 2007) The authors
then provide details within each era.
Noting a recent ‘‘. . . explosion in number of
manuscripts published . . .’’, increasingly in peer-
reviewed journals, Watson et al. (2007) ascribe this
record to reporting of ‘‘the potential benefits available
from the implementation of TOC practices.’’ The
authors end with a ‘‘call for research’’ in the ‘‘. . . belief
. . . that addressing these deficiencies will create
opportunities for greater acceptance of TOC practices
and principles in the mainstream.’’
Schonberger (2007) describes and analyzes the
phenomenon of Japanese production management
(JPM) with a personal retrospective approach. The
author of the best-selling Japanese Manufacturing
Techniques: Nine Hidden Lessons in Simplicity
(Schonberger, 1982) explores ‘‘. . . the sequence of
events leading to JPM as a competitive force globally, as
well as its impact on theory and practices in operations
management.’’ Schonberger identifies five ‘‘genera-
tions’’ of JPM beginning in the early 1980s. His
descriptions of the first three generations focus on such
elements as the Quality Circle and Quality Management
Movements, JIT/Lean (first generation), the Cost of
Quality and Design for manufacture and assembly
(DFMA) (second generation), ‘‘Shifts in practice
stem[ming] from Western innovations that dovetail
with and enhance the Japanese approaches’’ (third
231
generation), probing of ‘‘Japan’s latter-day period of
economic malaise beginning in about 1990 [examining]
the role of JPM during this difficult period (fourth
generation) and a view of ‘‘Japanese core contributions
as largely mature and unchanging (fifth generation)’’.
Schonberger concludes with three research hypotheses
concerning why ‘‘. . . so many companies are not doing
well on the inventory turnover scale’’.
Holweg (2007) presents ‘‘The genealogy of lean
production’’. His work is a ‘‘. . . study into the history
of lean production’’ from the point of view of a recent
joiner in the International Motor Vehicle Program
(IMVP) as a Sloan Industry Fellow in 2002. The
work is ‘‘. . . historical account of the research that led
to the formulation and dissemination of one of the
most influential manufacturing paradigms of recent
times.’’ It makes an interesting adjunct to Schonber-
ger’s reflections. Holweg’s Appendix B is a time
line of the research and dissemination of lean
production.
Karmarkar and Apte (2007) offer a possible preview
of the future of Operations Management. Noting the
‘‘bias towards the manufacturing sector’’ which
Heineke and Davis (2007) and Chase and Apte
(2007) describe as well, Karmarkar and Apte look
towards a vision of the next big deal. Based on the
premise that ‘‘. . . the information sector has already
become the dominant part of the economy in the U.S.,
and this shift is ongoing and inexorable’’, they propose
the information economy as the new (fourth) sector.
They then identify two ‘‘fundamental issues’’:
(1) ‘‘. . . perhaps the lack of a good scheme for
description or categorization . . .’’
(2) ‘‘quantification’’: ‘‘Even if we loosely agree on a
category (say an educational product or service) in
terms of what it is, output or quantity measurement
is neat impossible in meaningful terms’’
Admitting that ‘‘. . . it becomes hard to rely on
traditional tools of operations management in managing
and improving Information-Intensive Services (IIS)
. . .’’ Karmarkar and Apte go on to describe efforts to do
just this through a ‘‘proposed framework [which]
embraces a notion that if some of the performance
drivers are adjustable . . .’’ there are prospects for
progress. They then cite an empirical study, which
demonstrated significant findings to the benefit of an
insurance claimers’ handling process. They conclude
with ‘‘. . . a list of questions which we would like to be
able to answer about operations in the information
sector. We are working on some of these ourselves.’’
232 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
Their general conclusion is worth repeating here:
‘‘The future of Operations Management will not suffer
from a dearth of interesting and important issues.’’
8. Summary
Tracing the evolution of the field of Operations
Management is like trying to hack a simple path with
time-travel through an intriguing and complex landscape.
This attempt features a set of 16 articles about specific
topics and times, providing reminders and insights about
who knew what when. It certainly cannot tell the whole
story of the evolution. Barely alluded to or missing
completely are such issues as our origins in mechanical
engineering and the story of the beginnings of Industrial
Engineering, Forrester’s Systems Dynamics, the Quality
Movement, linkages with Management Information
Systems, the role of our professional associations other
than APICS, relationships with Marketing particularly
Industrial Marketing . . . the list is never-ending—enough
for several Special Issues and/or books.
In summarizing this Special Issue, it is possible to
find consistent themes which reappear from time to
time, often barely disguised. We seem to forget what we
knew when something presumably new appears. It
might be helpful to remind ourselves of a few principles
which appear to be standing the tests of time.
8.1. Persistent themes: (a) facts as the basis of
action
There are a few persistent themes from history, which
are worth remembering. First, here are brief descriptions
of the work of some of our predecessors—most, but not
all, included in this Special Issue of the JOM:
1556 Georgius Agricola—‘‘documentation and codifi-
cation’’:
‘‘Agricola led the way in developing knowledge
based not just on learning by doing, but by scientific
and empirical research and the challenging of
existing wisdom . . . Through careful documentation
and codification of his knowledge he was able to let
others, both academics and practitioners, share his
research for 450 years.’’ (Voss, 2007)
1835 Charles Babbage—‘‘systematic analysis’’:
‘‘Where Babbage’s claim is strongest however is in
presenting a ‘systematic analysis’ derived from
pragmatic and industrially relevant but conceptually
robust insights . . . [he] explicitly argued that ‘efforts
for the improvement of . . . manufactures . . . with the
greatest probability of success, must arise from the
combined exertions of all those most skilled in the
theory, as well as the practice.’’ (Babbage, 1835, p.
379)’’ (Lewis, 2007)
1880s Fred Harvey and the Harvey Houses—standar-
dized operations
A precisely-specified set of activities went into full
swing as soon as a Harvey House received a wire or
whistle signal from an approaching train . . .
Harvey’s emphasis on consistency and standard
operations predates by more than a quarter century
the 1911 publication of Taylor’s The Principles of
Scientific Management.’’ (Brown and Hyer, 2007)
1890s Frederick W. Taylor and Carl Barth—experi-
ments in work and metallurgy
‘‘. . . this presumably astonishing scientific truth
merely added a patina of arithmetical legitimacy to
common sense: people need to rest, and the harder
they work the more rest they need . . . specifically,
Barth’s ‘law of heavy laboring’ proposed that . . . a
first-class workman can only be under load 43 percent
of the day . . . [and] must be entirely free from load
during 57 percent . . . as the load becomes lighter, the
percentage of the day under which the man can
remain under load increases.’’ (Kanigel, 1997, p. 332)
1991 Frederick W. Taylor—Principles of Scientific
Management and Shop Management
‘‘The conclusions embodied in Dr. Taylor’s ‘Shop
Management’ constitute in effect the foundations of a
new science—‘The Science of Industrial Manage-
ment’ . . . Taylor has demonstrated conclusively that
. . . it is essential to segregate planning of the work
from its execution; to employ for the former trained
experts possessing the right mental equipment, and
for the latter men having the right physical equipment
for their respective tasks and being receptive of expert
guidance in their performance.’’ (Taylor, 1911, pp. 9–
10—from the Foreword by Henry R. Towne, Past
President of the ASME and President of the Yale &
Towne Manufacturing Company)
1926 Henry Ford—Today and Tomorrow
‘‘It is not easy to get away from tradition. That is why
all our new operations are always directed by men
who have had no previous knowledge of the subject
and therefore have not had a chance to get on really
familiar terms with the impossible . . . no operation is
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
ever directed by a technician, for always he knows
far too many things that can’t be done. Our invariable
reply to ‘It can’t be done’’ is, ‘‘Go do it.’’ (Ford,
2003/1926, p. 48)
1930s Walter Shewhart—Statistical Process Control
‘‘The long-range contribution of statistics depends
not so much upon getting a lot of highly trained
statisticians into industry as it does in creating a
statistically minded generation of physicists, che-
mists, engineers and others who will in any way have
a hand in developing and directing the production
processes of tomorrow.’’ (W.A. Shewart, edited by
W.E. Deming, from ‘‘Statistical Method from the
Viewpoint of Quality Control’’, p. 49, The Graduate
School, Department of Agriculture, Washington,
D.C., 1939—cited in Grant, 1946, p. 3)
1940s William Gomberg—A Trade Union Analysis of
Time Study
‘‘It is now eight years since the first edition of A
Trade Union Analysis of Time Study appeared.
Statistical methods of treating time study data had
received no application up to that time. Any attempt
to think of the time study problem as a statistical
problem of sampling was contemptuously dismissed
as numerical nonsense. Labor’s right to participate in
the process of rate setting remained to be finally
established.
Since the publication of the original edition of
the manuscript, many new scholars have appeared
to defend and implement the application of
statistical methods to time study . . . the report of
the Society for the Advancement of Management
rating project itself is couched in statistical terms.
Although many of us may take issue with its
conclusions and methodology, it is nevertheless
significant that the authors of the report were
careful to point out that there were alternative
methods of treating the data they collated
statistically. This in itself is tribute enough to the
new pervasive influence of statistical methodology
in time study.’’ (Gomberg, 1955: From the Fore-
word to Second Edition, pp. ix–x)
There is a constant theme: the systematic collection
and analysis of data, using ‘‘science’’ to inform
decision-making. Or, as Drucker would put it, the
application of knowledge to machines and human
work. From Taylor’s point of view, this would
include the application of science or knowledge to
233
management as well. It was not until 1971 that this
occurred:
1971 Henry Mintzberg—‘‘Managerial work: Analysis
from observation’’
‘‘The progress of management science is dependent
on our understanding of the manager’s working
processes. A review of the literature indicates that
this understanding is superficial at best . . . The
management scientist has done little to change this.
HE has been unable to understand work which has
never been adequately described, and he has poor
access to the manager’s information, most of which
is never documented. We must describe managerial
work more precisely, and we must model the
manager as a programmed system. Only then shall
we be able to make a science of management.’’
(Mintzberg, 1971, p. B-97)
Mintzberg’s Management Science article and sub-
sequent classic Harvard Business Review article –
‘‘The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact’’ – (Mintzberg,
1975) were based on his doctoral dissertation at the
Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. His thesis
committee was chaired by Professor Donald C. Carroll,
then Chair of the School’s Production Management
Department.
Our history is characterized by a bias towards data
collection and analysis, and by experimentation or –
to borrow a phrase from China’s Supreme Leader
Deng Xiaoping – a tendency to Seek Truth from Facts.
The focus of our efforts has traditionally been
applications of science to improve our understanding
of humans and their machines—preferably in realistic
organizational settings. Examination of our current
journals, however, would find little evidence of new
insights of the caliber and impact of these earlier
contributions.
8.2. Persistent themes: (b) systems and their
peculiarities
A more recent theme has involved attempts to
understand systems. Again some examples, this time
from an engineer, an operations researcher and a
‘‘management type’’.
1961 Jay W. Forrester—Industrial Dynamics
‘‘Industrial dynamics is a way of studying the
behavior of industrial systems to show how policies,
decisions, structure, and delays are interrelated to
234 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
influence growth and stability. It integrates the
separate functional areas of management—market-
ing, investment, research, personnel, production, and
accounting. Each of these functions is reduced to a
common basis by recognizing that any economic
or corporate activity consists of flows of money,
orders, materials, personnel, and capital equipment.
These five flows are integrated by an information
network. Industrial dynamics recognizes the critical
importance of this information network in giving
the system its own dynamic characteristics . . .’’
(Forrester, 1961, p. vii)
‘‘evidence of the bias of much of today’s
management science toward the mathematical rather
than the managerial motivation is seen in a
preoccupation with ‘optimum’’ solutions. For most
of the great management problems, mathematical
models fall far short of being able to find the ‘best’
solution . . .’’ (Forrester, 1961, p. 3)
Until now much of management education and
practice has dealt only with components. Account-
ing, production, marketing, finance, human relations,
and economics have been taught and practiced as if
they were separate, unrelated subjects . . . In
management as in engineering, we can expect that
the interconnections and interactions between the
components of the system will often be more
important than the separate components them-
selves.’’ (Forrester, 1961, p. 6)
‘‘The experimental approach should take the
place of observation alone. Mathematical models
should incorporate all the factors that our judgment
tells us are essential to the solution of the problem at
hand. No longer should we limit our attention to
oversimplified analysis simply to achieve analytical
solutions. We should abandon the question for
optimum solutions in the interest of attacking
significant problems. More is to be gained by
improving areas or major opportunity than by
optimizing areas of minor importance.’’ (Forrester,
1961, p. 361)
1963 Martin K. Starr—Systems and optimum
‘‘Before the Ming Dynasty I was writing things
about systems’ optimum’s prevailing over clusters of
local optimums. I did a thing with NASA for my
Product Design book with Prentice Hall’s Engineer-
ing Series in 1963 that explained why early USA
efforts to match Sputnik were failing. Every part was
being optimized and the bird would not fly. But when
we agreed to optimums the whole system, U.S.
shuttles began to fly. This appeared in my first
production book:
OptðS1 þ S2 þ S3 þ    þ Sn Þ
) ðOpt S1 þ Opt S2 þ Opt S3 þ    þ Opt Sn Þ
This equation means that the optimum of the system
taken as a whole is equal to or greater than the sum of
the optimums of the individual subsystems that com-
prise the whole system.’’ (Starr, 2006, 1963)
1969 Wickham Skinner—Manufacturing Strategy
‘‘. . . the cases were mostly Fortune magazine
articles—authentic and in the national view. The
[students] were fascinated: how could such great
companies get into such trouble? . . . suddenly it all
began to come together. I saw that the companies had
gotten into trouble because experienced production
executives had applied their hard-earned wisdom and
conventional premises of their profession to reach
fundamental manufacturing policy decisions that
were just plain wrong. They did not work . . .’’
(Skinner, 2007)
‘‘How could manufacturing managers go wrong
by applying conventional premises of industrial
management developed and improved over a
century? . . . The equipment may have been chosen
for high-volume production, the plant capacity set
for low investment, the production control system to
handle small lot-sizes, the wage system to minimize
turnover, etc. Every system pulled its own way and
the plants, run by separate conventional industrial
management concepts were not outstanding at
anything, so were not able to compete . . .
Put this all together and the bad results were so
bad that they became strategic, setting the company
back competitively—in markets, in financial results,
in the stock market. And the causes were poor
manufacturing policies—those expensive, long-term
structural decisions with massive and pervasive on-
going consequences . . . Top management should
manage manufacturing by making sure that those
manufacturing policies were tight. ‘Right’ would be
when the manufacturing function worked. And what
made it ‘work’? It worked when the whole thing fit
and supported or created corporate strategy.’’
(Skinner, 2007)
We have three authors with varied backgrounds and
different vocabularies with the same insight into the
workings of systems—all in the same decade. There is
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
also a mythic tale from the early days of World War I,
which makes the same point:
Early fighter aircraft pilots shot handguns at one
another, leaning out of an open cockpit. This evolved
quickly into a two-seater with a gunner sitting behind
the pilot who manned a machine gun aimed at the
enemy. The design objective became a machine gun
mounted on the front of the plane, which could be
fired by the solo pilot as he flew at his enemy. The
problem was the propeller: a gun mounted con-
veniently for firing shot off the propeller. An engine/
propeller manufacturer and a machine gun manu-
facturer were commissioned separately to solve the
problem. Each arrived at the aerodrome, installed
each set of gear onto the waiting aircraft and turned
everything on. The machine guns neatly cut off the
propeller. The Air Marshal in charge is reported to
have shouted at the two teams, ‘‘You get in that
hangar and do not come out until the damned thing
works!’’ Many days later, the bedraggled teams
pushed a working model onto the runway. Neither
the gun nor the engine was ‘‘optimal’’ but the system
worked.
Work in the field of supply chain management must
grapple with this fundamental truth on a regular basis.
‘‘Optimizing the supply chain’’ means convincing
elements within that system to accept local subopti-
mums for the good of the whole, while too often being
measured as if they were not so constrained. As Skinner
explains, a corporate strategy cobbled together from
‘‘optimal’’ subsystems (the brightest ideas from finance,
marketing and operations) does not work. The mathe-
matics may be there but the resulting behavior may not
be as expected. Without question, systems issues are
with us for the long haul: remembering some basics
might help.
8.3. Our legacy and our future
We know what our predecessors accomplished.
What is the current state of the art in the arenas with
which Operations Management is identified? In 2006,
Pfeffer and Sutton introduced evidence-based manage-
ment, which is derived from work in Canada called
evidence-based medicine:
‘‘A bold new way of thinking has taken the medical
establishment by storm in the past decade: the idea
that decisions in medical care should be based on
the latest and best knowledge of what actually
works . . . [This is defined] as ‘the conscientious,
235
explicit and judicious use of current best evidence
in making decisions about the care of individual
patients.’
If all this sounds laughable to you – after all, what
else besides evidence would guide medical decisions
– then you are woefully naı̈ve about how doctors
have traditionally plied their trade. Yes, the research
is out there . . . Unfortunately, physicians don’t use
much of it. Recent studies show that only about 15%
of their decisions are evidence based . . .
The same behavior holds true for managers
looking to cure their organizational ills. Indeed, we
would argue, managers are actually much more
ignorant than doctors about which prescriptions are
reliable—and they’re less eager to find out.‘‘ (Pfeffer
and Sutton, 2006, pp. 63–64)
‘‘Evidence-based management’’ has a familiar ring
to it, bringing back an objective, which would be
familiar to Babbage, Taylor, Barth, and the Gilbreths,
for example, and probably also to those members of
Harvard’s Production Area like Elton May who
conducted the famous Hawthorne experiments in the
mid-1920s. Applications of science would not help if
the results are not then used to guide action. Why is the
evidence not heeded?
Pfeffer and Sutton’s Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-
Truths, and Total Nonsense (2006) was developed as a
result of experiences following the publication of their
earlier (1999) The Knowing Gap: How Smart Compa-
nies Turn Knowledge into Action. The research question
behind the 1999 work was ‘‘Why do so much education
and training, management consulting, and business
research and so many books and articles produce so
little change in what managers and organizations
actually do?’’ (p. 1) A brief summary of their
conclusions then:
‘‘We found no simple answers to the knowing-doing
dilemma. Given the importance of the knowing-
doing problem, if such simple answers existed, they
would already have been implemented. And the rare
firms that are able to consistently translate knowl-
edge into action would not enjoy the substantial
competitive advantages that they now do . . . one of
the most important insights from our research is that
knowledge that is actually implemented is much
more likely to be acquired from learning by doing
than from learning by reading, listening, or even
thinking . . . One of our main recommendations is to
engage more frequently in thoughtful action. Spend
less time just contemplating and talking about
organizational problems. Taking action will generate
236 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
experience from which you can learn.’’ (Pfeffer and
Sutton, 1999, pp. 5–6)
Meanwhile, there is evidence that the responses of
business schools to the 1959 Carnegie and Ford
Foundations’ reports may have gone overboard—
perhaps contributing to the problems Pfeffer and Sutton
describe. Writing in the Harvard Business Review in
2005, Professors Warren G. Bennis and James O’Toole
detail their judgments on ‘‘How Business Schools Lost
Their Way’’:
‘‘The actual cause of today’s crisis in management
education . . . can be traced to a dramatic shift in the
culture of business schools. During the past several
decades, many leading B schools have quietly
adopted an inappropriate – and ultimately self-
defeating – model of academic excellence. Instead of
measuring themselves in terms of the competence of
their graduates, or by how well their faculties
understand important drivers of business perfor-
mance, they measure themselves almost solely by
the rigor of their scientific research . . . Some of the
research produced is excellent, but because so little
of it is grounded in actually business practices, the
focus of graduate business education has become
increasingly circumscribed—and less and less
relevant to practitioners.
This scientific model, as we call it, is predicated
on the faulty assumption that business is an
academic discipline like chemistry or geology. In
fact, business is a profession, akin to medicine and
the law, and business schools are professional
schools—or should be . . . In our view, no curricular
reforms will work until the scientific model is
replaced by a more appropriate model rooted in the
special requirements of a profession.’’ (Bennis and
O’Toole, 2005, pp. 97–98).
‘‘The problem is not that business schools have
embraced scientific rigor but that they have forsaken
other forms of knowledge . . . As the late Sumantra
Ghoshal wrote in a shrewd analysis of the problems
with management education today, ‘The task is not
one of delegitimizing existing approaches, but one of
relegitimizing pluralism.’’’ (Bennis and O’Toole,
2005, p. 104)
The impact of these criticisms and recommenda-
tions should be of concern to us. Our legacy should
place us in prime position for participation in
reforms towards increased professionalism for busi-
ness schools. Our early days were devoted to the
development of scientific approaches to the problems
of work and its management—the application of
knowledge to humans and their machines. Too often
today, scientific methods are increasingly applied to
narrow sets of problems, many technical in nature.
The prospect of real experimentation – implementa-
tion in organizations – is unlikely to be considered,
much less attempted. Are we walking away from our
roots in the messy domain of the management of
people and the technologies with which they now
interact?
Consider the evolution of the name of our field:
Scientific Management: in Taylor’s days
Factory Management: overlapping and extending
from Taylor’s days
Industrial Management: common in the 1930s
Production Management: from World War II and
beyond
Operations Management: our most recent reincarna-
tion.
The constant seems to be Management. In many
business schools, we may be the only remnant of
this professional domain. Perhaps it is time to shift
gears and move closer to the problems and issues
surrounding the effective management of operations.
This is a much messier domain but it looks like
opportunity beckoning.
8.4. A personal note
In 1959, I took a course in Work Simplification
taught by Prof. Herb Goodwin in what was then MIT’s
Course XV—‘‘The School of Industrial Management
founded under a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, Inc.’’ – its official title at the time. The
course was ‘‘inspired by Lillian M. Gilbreth’’ who
taught two of the classes. I still have my notes from this
course. When ‘‘Business Process Reengineering’’
(BPR) first came along in the early 1990s, there was
little detail available on exactly what one might do in
the name of this enthusiasm. Under pressure from an
ExecMBA class desperate to engage in this state of the
art exercise, I handed out general instructions for BPR
projects they could undertake within their own
companies. Roaring success would be a gentle phrase:
all projects resulted in savings ranging from modest to
dramatic. At the end of the course, I had to confess: my
handout was taken from my 1959 Work Simplification
class notes. This included Lillian Gilbreth’s famous
motto, ‘‘The mind is like a parachute: it only works
when it’s open, and you can’t go back and get another
 L.G. Sprague / Journal of Operations Management 25 (2007) 219–238
one.’’ The ExecMBAs promised not to tell a soul about
our secret source. Several have had occasion to use
these ‘‘old’’ notes again.
In the 1960s, I worked with my husband, Chris
Sprague, on several projects in Physical Distribution
Systems (PDS). Given the era, the clients never saw
me—girls did not do stuff like that. Since then I have
managed to slide from PDS to Logistics to, of course,
Supply Chain Management (SCM). It seems that
warehouses are still in common use, inventory clerks
are still at work (doing what is not always clear),
transportation is not as trouble-free as one might wish
(particularly in less developed parts of the world),
software does not always solve everything, and
inventory accuracies are not as high as one might
prefer. I still have my copy of Readings in Physical
Distribution Management edited by Bowersox, Smykay
and La Londe (1968). Not all of the current SCM texts
provide such gritty detail, too often viewing the problem
as amenable to solution at the strategic level through
optimization.
My experience suggests that new Operations
Management concepts are more likely than not to be
built on earlier work (which it helps to know about), or
may in fact be straightforward repackaging of previous
ideas and models. Teaching and learning only the most
current enthusiasm without providing background and
references does not necessarily guarantee success.
Understanding some of the history of our business is
well worth the effort. This Special Issue of the JOM has
been prepared with the hope that those familiar with
much of this material will enjoy seeing it again and that
those not familiar with the materials will benefit from
knowing the back stories behind some of today’s
problems and issues.
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