Modelling and analysis of sustainable operations management: certain investigations for research and applications

Abstract

Sustainable operations management (SOM) can be defined as the operations strategies, tactics and techniques, and operational policies to support both economic and environmental objectives and goals. The subject of sustainability has gained much attention from both researchers and practitioners in the past 6–8 years. Most of the articles deal with sustainability from environmental perspectives, but a limited number of them integrate both economic and environmental implications or focus on trading-off between profitability, competitiveness and environmental dimensions. Moreover, there is a limited focus on modelling and analysis (MA) of SOM integrating and balancing the interests of both economic and environmental interests. Therefore, an attempt has been made in this paper to review the extant literature on SOM. The objective is to understand the definition of SOM and present the current status of research in MA, as well as future research directions in the field. Considering the recent focus of the subject, we review the literature on MA of SOM beginning in 2000 in order to make our study current and more relevant for both researchers and practitioners. Finally, a summary of findings and conclusions is reported.

Keywords:

• sustainability
• operations
• modelling and analysis
• literature review
• future research directions

Acknowledgements

The authors are most grateful to Professor Thomas Archibald, Editor-in-Chief of JORS for the opportunity to write this review paper and the subsequent referee comments that helped improve the final version. Also, our sincere thanks go to the OR and OM researchers who were the real motivation behind this paper. We dedicate this paper to all the OR and OM researchers.