Production and operations management

Production and Operations Management (production-and-operations-management)

Journal positioning

Production and Operations Management (POM) is the journal of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS) and one of OM's broad-tent flagships. It publishes the full range of OM scholarship — analytical models and empirical studies alike — across supply chain, operations strategy, sustainability operations, healthcare operations, service operations, and the operations–marketing and operations–finance interfaces. Where M&SOM leans analytical and JOM leans empirical, POM is deliberately methods-broad and welcomes both, judged on the importance of the operations problem and the rigor of the contribution. The readership is the broad POMS community.

This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the POMS / publisher site and the editorial submission system.

When to trigger

• The author names POM / POMS (or the broad OM elite) as the target venue.
• An analytical or empirical OM paper — including sustainability, healthcare, or interface operations — needs a broad OM flagship.
• A paper at the operations–marketing or operations–finance interface needs an OM home.
• The author needs POM's desk-reject risks and a credible OM / MS / OR alternative list before submitting.

Scope & topic fit

• Supply chain management, operations strategy, and global operations.
• Sustainability and socially responsible operations; closed-loop and green supply chains.
• Healthcare operations and service operations.
• Operations interfaces with marketing, finance, and information systems; behavioral and empirical OM.

Method & evidence bar

• Analytical papers need a correct, non-trivial model with proofs and a clear operations insight; assumptions must be defensible.
• Empirical papers need credible identification (DiD/IV/RDD/experiments) or a defensible structural model, with appropriate data.
• Behavioral OM needs adequate power, sound design, and replicability.
• Whatever the method, the operations problem must be important and the contribution generalizable.

Structure & house style

• The introduction frames the operations problem, states the contribution and method early, and situates the paper in the OM literature.
• Analytical papers lead with structure and intuition; proofs and extensions go to an online appendix.
• Empirical papers report and interpret operational magnitudes, not only significance.
• POM accommodates topical areas/sections; framing the paper for the right area helps fit.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Production and Operations Management author guidelines / submission guidelines" and follow the current POMS/publisher version, including any departmental/area structure.
• Re-check word/length limits, abstract format, anonymization for double-blind review, and reference style.
• Re-check the current open-science, data/code availability, and disclosure/ethics policies.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence stating the operations contribution and why it matters to the POMS community.
• The contribution is stated as a model result / identification / operational mechanism, not as significance.
• Modeling assumptions are defensible, or the empirical identification is credible and robust.
• Results report operational magnitudes; the discussion states theory and practice contributions.
• Length, abstract, anonymization, references, and open-science policy match the current POM guide.

Common desk-reject triggers

• A model with no operations insight or with implausible assumptions; an empirical study with no identification.
• A descriptive or atheoretical study with no contribution to OM understanding.
• A pure OR methodology paper with no OM payoff, or a non-OM paper framed as operations.
• Significant coefficients without operational magnitude or mechanism.

Re-routing decision

• Analytical OM theory and models with an INFORMS audience → manufacturing-and-service-operations-management.
• Survey-based, behavioral, or theory-testing empirical OM → journal-of-operations-management.
• Broad management insight or empirics across subfields → management-science (choose the right department).
• OR methodology / optimization for its own sake → operations-research; computational → informs-journal-on-computing.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Production and Operations Management
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <does the operations contribution + rigor clear POM's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <submission system / area / blinding / open-science / data-code>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>