2009 Mini-Conference of the POMS College of Sustainable Operations

The Mini-Conference of the POMS College of Sustainable Operations was successfully held at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa in Orlando on April 30, 2009. The Mini-Conference brought together more than 40 researchers who shared the common interest on sustainability and sustainable operations.

The Mini-Conference commenced with Gil Souza’s overview of current research and future directions in closed-loop supply chains by. He categorized the research areas of closed-loop supply chains and discussed research trends and future directions for each area. Charles Corbett talked about environmental operations. His interactive style presentation induced many interesting potential research topics from audience. Luk Van Wassenhove shared his experience and views on an emerging research area, humanitarian logistics, with examples from the projects led at INSEAD. He explained the differentiating aspects of humanitarian logistics and emphasized the need to bridge the gap between academics and practice in this area. Atalay Atasu and Ravi Subramanian presented a summary of the submissions to the Sustainable Operations Track of POMS Annual Meeting, and an analysis of the research trends on the basis of this information.

The editorial panel was held in the afternoon. Senior editors of leading journals (Management Science, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Supply Chain Management, Journal of Industrial Ecology, and Foundations and Trend in Technology) discussed trends and interest from these journals in various types of sustainable operations research.