El Buffa was one of the founding fathers of the field of production and operations management. His very first book, Modern Production Management published in 1961, redefined the field. Its key contribution was to integrate ideas from industrial engineering and the then rather young discipline of operations research to suggest ways to improve efficiency in both the manufacturing and service sectors. The book became an instant success and was adopted as a basic text for introductory courses in production management throughout the country and around the world. The book has been translated into half a dozen languages and went through eight editions through 1987. Thousands of academics and practitioners learned about the field from this classic text and its distinguished 1963 sequel, Operations Management (whose exquisitely descriptive title was taken up quickly by business schools and remains ubiquitous unto the present day). Buffa wrote 9 major texts and a total of 26 distinct editions, and is widely considered to be his field’s most influential textbook writer during the 1960s and 1970s.
(I would like to specifically mention that Buff did not mention industrial engineering in his book of modern production management. If he correctly identified the role of industrial engineering discipline, he would have done a great service to industrial engineering. But by carefully avoiding even mention of industrial engineering in the index of the text he did a great disservice to industrial engineering.)
Elwood Buffa was born on April 12, 1923 to an Italian father and an English mother in Beloit, Wisconsin.
El finished his MBA in 1948 after completing his military service, after which the Eastman Kodak Company offered him a job in their Industrial Engineering Department. This was El’s first challenge to improve the cost, quality and efficiency of manufacturing operations. He found that he especially enjoyed training people in new ways to improve productivity.
El’s fondness of teaching led him in 1951 to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign as an assistant professor of industrial engineering, where he soon discovered that he needed a PhD to make a career in academia. So, with the strong support of Professor Ralph Barnes, then one of the most influential industrial engineers in the country, El enrolled in UCLA’s PhD program at the College of Engineering, and taught as a lecturer at the business school to support his family. He settled in Pacific Palisades where he raised his children, Carl, Jerry, and Linda.
In 1957, El received his PhD and was appointed as an associate professor at UCLA’s School of Business Administration. He was promoted to the rank of professor in 1961. He was a visiting professor at Harvard Business School from 1963 to 1964, but UCLA lured him back where he remained until retirement. El contributed to UCLA in many ways. His contributions as an educator and scholar are well recognized in the field, and he was known throughout the UCLA community for his distinguished service to the University. He was chairman of the Budget Committee, which reviewed all promotions and appointments for the entire campus. He was elected chairman of the UCLA Academic Senate from 1975 to 1976. He served as associate dean (1970-1974) of the Graduate School of Management and was the founding director of the Executive MBA Program (1981-1984), which went on to become a highly successful program at the UCLA Anderson School.
http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/inmemoriam/elwoodbuffa.html
Perspectives in Operations Management: Essays in Honor of Elwood S. Buffa
Rakesh K. SarinSpringer Science & Business Media, 06-Dec-2012 - Business & Economics - 493 pages
In the fall of 1992 a conference honoring Elwood S. Buffa was held at the Anderson Graduate School of Management of the University of California, Los Angeles. This book is a collection of the work presented at that conference. The scholars who gathered to honor El are the prominent researchers in the field of Operations Management. Their collective work published in this book represents the richness of the field and provides the reader with valuable insights into its important issues and problems.
The book is organized into four sections. In the first section the articles dealing with the strategic issues in Operations Management are compiled. The articles deal with continuous improvement, quality, services, supply chain management, and creating value through operations. The articles that explore the interface of Operations Management with other functional areas, e.g. engineering and marketing, are grouped in the second section. The third section of the book contains articles that attempt to model some important planning problems that arise in the management of production and operations. Some of the papers in this section provide state of the art reviews of selected topic areas. Finally, the fourth section contains articles that deal with future directions for Operations Management. The authors offer several insights into the future evolution of the field.
The book begins with the keynote address given by El Buffa at the start of the conference on November 2, 1991.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=zPgGCAAAQBAJ
One Year Industrial Engineering Knowledge Revision Plan
http://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2016/02/one-year-industrial-engineering.html
Updated 12 April 2017, 23 October 2014
