PRODUCTION/OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: AGENDA FOR THE '80s.

This paper draws from the proceedings of workshops on production/operations management (P/OM) in 1980. Stock-taking discussions among P/OM specialists reveal the field to be at a critical point in its evolution. P/OM has not outlasted its usefulness to management. Despite the stubborn efforts of senior managers to disgard operations, perhaps with the hope that they would eventually go away, this most central function of all business activities has become the focus of popular interest. America's shortcomings in productivity and technological innovation, to name two aspects of a complex problem, have been interpreted as signs of declining competitive capability. The American challenges of the 1960s appears to have given way to the American catch-up attempt of the 1980s.