Dr. Ayham Jaaron, Associate Professor in Industrial Engineering at An-Najah National University, participated in the “The 25^th EurOMA International Conference” held in Budapest, Hungary, from 24-26 June 2018.

The EurOMA 25th Conference included more than 680 researchers from over 45 different countries. Dr. Jaaron presented a paper in this conference co-authored with Professor Chris Backhouse from Loughborough University in the UK. The paper, entitled “Achieving Sustainability through Service Operations Design: The Role of Systems Thinking”, investigates the impact of applying systems thinking approach to service operations design on the Triple Bottom Lines (TBL) of sustainability. The paper is based on quantitative methodology using data from 95 service organizations that have implemented the systems thinking approach into their service operations. Using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique, results confirmed that systems thinking implementation in service operations has significant impact on the environmental and social dimensions of sustainability but has no significant effect on the economic dimension. This is the first study empirically investigating the impact of systems thinking approach on the TBL of sustainability in service departments.

The 25^th EurOMA 2018 International Conference is one in a series of conferences organized by the International EurOMA Association on Operations Management (OM), Supply Chain Management and control. EurOMA is a European-based network with rapidly growing international links, whereby members can share their ideas, knowledge, and experience. It is a communication network that bridges the gap between research and practice. Together with its American counterpart POMS (Production and Operations Management Society) and JOMSA(Japanese Operations Management and Strategy Association) in Asia, EurOMA is working towards extending the arena of OM throughout the world by bringing the professionals in the field closer together. In the spirit of networking, EurOMA maintains reciprocal links to other groups that are actively involved in OM.