Aims and scope

Production Planning & Control is an international journal that brings together research papers on the management of operations in all industries. The journal focuses on research that stems from an industrial need and can guide the activities of managers and future researchers. With the aim of developing the research community in operations management, pictures and bios of authors together with their contact details are provided with each paper. Where possible, reviewers provide guidance for the improvement of papers including those being rejected. 

Production Planning & Control welcomes papers that describe research based on the emerging needs of industry, making clear the nature of the industrial problem. Any appropriate research methods may be used and each paper should justify the method applied. Case studies are welcome where they illustrate research needs or application problems that have significance at the international level. Writers should relate their work to the existing knowledge in the field, especially with regard to the implications of the work for management practice and setting the agenda for future research.

Papers based on surveys tend to be broad and descriptive and often fail to develop useful new knowledge that can guide the activities of managers.

Production Planning & Control is not the appropriate journal for theoretical papers in operations research, OR/MS, optimisation or simulation based on invented scenarios or other numerical experiments or examples that are only tested in the laboratory, even when the test data comes from a company.

To be published in Production Planning & Control, a paper will have been reviewed and accepted by at least two competent experts in the field. Reviewers are drawn from the Editorial Board and a list of occasional reviewers who have been nominated for their expertise. Reviewers’ comments are based on relevance to the field, particularly applicability in industry, besides originality and scientific rigour.

Production Planning & Control is subscribed to by a wealth of universities and industry libraries and readership includes researchers in the field of operations management, supply chain management, and business improvement, consultants dealing with manufacturing and service industries, operations managers, business improvement specialists, and other managers in industry.