Each year the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Society of INFORMS conducts a student paper competition. In Volume 2, Issue 2 of M&SOM, we published the extended abstracts of the 1999 winners in the hopes that this could become an annual event. Our hopes have become a...

Product launch - an event when a new product debuts for production in a plant - is an important phase in product development. But launches disrupt manufacturing operations resulting in productivity losses. Using data from North-American automotive plants from years 1999-2007, we estimate that a...