Dear colleague,

THENEXOM is a European network for excellence in Operations and Supply Chain Management OM/SCM/SOM. It was established in 2003 under the sponsorship of EurOMA (the European Operations Management Association) and was funded by the European Commission’s SOCRATES community action programme. The THENEXOM goals are to analyse the present state of OM/SCM/SOM teaching in European academic institutions and to identify strengths and weaknesses in order to share the results within the OM/SCM/SOM community (business and engineering) and promote the use of best practice. The network involves teachers, researchers and practitioners in 30 European countries.

We have completed the first phase of the THENEXOM project comprising a census of the OM/SCM/SOM community and identified more than 1400 interested people in Europe. If you are a teacher or an active researcher in OM/SCM/SOM and haven't joined this census, we invite you to enter your professional profile in order to receive your password. If it is the case, please click on the next button for joining the CENSUS.

The second phase of the THENEXOM project is now underway. This comprises a survey of courses and teaching methods to determine the current status of the subject. The survey results are important to provide a common understanding and for the future development and promotion of the field. Privileged access to the reports made from survey results will be made available to participants.

We would be grateful if you could spend some time to participate in this survey. It is web based and designed so that you only need to complete the sections that are applicable to your own courses and OM/SCM/SOM teaching activities. Please complete the survey for your course(s). The questionnaire should be completed for each course you teach. You can pause at any time and save the part-completed questionnaire. Translations into some national languages are available on the website to facilitate the understanding of the questionnaire.

Thank you in anticipation of your participation in this important project for the OM community.

Yours sincerely,

ANNEXE. THENEXOM definitions

Operations Management (OM) is concerned with the way organisations produce goods and services, and in particular the tasks, issues and decisions of those operations managers who deliver the services or make the products on which everyone depends. Traditional topics covered in this field include Operations Strategy, Product&Process design and development, Capacity management, Location and layout, Quality Management and continuous improvement, Production Planning, MRP/ERP Systems, Just-in-Time/Lean Production, Project Management, Process Management, Inventory Systems, Global Operations, Management of Advance Manufacturing Technologies, Service Operations Management, Purchasing and materials management, Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Performance measurement, Internet-enabled operations, Environmental Operations Management, among others.

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is concerned with the management of logistical flows and with the set of management practices used to design, plan, and control these flows in order to achieve seamless integration of the network of suppliers feeding an operations system.

Service Operations Management (SOM) is similar to Operations Management but focuses exclusively on the service industry and on the difficulty of designing, planning, and controlling operations when an operations system output is intangible, co-produced, and involves emotions and experiences.