Submissions

Author Guidelines

The International Journal of Production Management and Engineering publishes original works in English on all aspects of production management and engineering. Papers must not have been previously published (pre-print) and must not be considered for publication elsewhere.

Please supply all the details required by any funding and grant-awarding bodies as an Acknowledgement in the manuscript and in a separate paragraph (see Funding sources policy).

Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions through the Communication Channel on the PoliPapers platform.

The International Journal of Production Management and Engineering has neither article submission charges nor article processing charges (APCs).

Guidelines for the submission preparation

Authors must use the IJPME TEMPLATE to adhere to its style rules. As a general rule, attention will be paid to:

Manuscripts should be single spaced on double side of A4 paper only with wide margins throughout. The manuscript must be written in clear and concise English in 12-14 pages length. Times New Roman font is a common font the text.

The recommended word count should be between 5000 and 10000 words, and for higher word counts, a supporting commentary should be included

The manuscript should in general comprise an essential data (title, author names, abstract, and keywords) and an extended contribution.

• Title. The title must adequately describe the contribution’s content. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible. Up to 40 words.

• Authors and affiliation. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names.

• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
• Abstract. A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract of not more than 200 words.
• Keywords. Provide a maximum of 6 keywords separated by semicolon, using British spelling and avoiding general and plural terms..
• Structure. Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, if any, and References.

• Abbreviations. Define abbreviations that are not standard at their first mention there. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
• Figures and Tables. Tables and figures must be correlatively numbered, following their order of appearance in the text. They must include captions that adequately describe the table's or figure's contents (not on the figure itself), and they should include the source of information used to build the table or figure.
• Equations and Formulas. Displayed equations or formulas are centered and set on a separate line (with an extra line space above and below). Displayed expressions should be numbered for reference. The numbers should be consecutive within the contribution, with numbers enclosed in parentheses and set on the right margin.
• Footnotes. Footnotes or endnotes will NOT be accepted.
• Appendices. If needed, authors can add appendices to the document, that include complementary material useful to other researchers (e.g., questionnaires used in surveys, program code, etc.). Appendices will be placed after the references section, and they must be labelled using roman numerals (Appendix I, II, ...), and should have a title descriptive of its contents.
• References. Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological Association (http://www.apastyle.org). For specific information on documenting particular sources, consult a style guide such as Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or A Writer's Reference. Each print and electronic sources has its own defined style.  References in the text should be cited thus: Anthony (1965) or (Anthony, 1965); two authors: Gliffer and Thompson (1960) or (Gliffer and Thompson, 1960); three or more authors, Lasi et al. (2014) or (Lasi et al., 2014). References to papers by the same author (s) in the same year are distinguished in text and reference list by the letters a, b etc. References must be listed at the end of the paper in alphabetical order and then further sorted chronologically if necessary..
• Data Availability. The data is available in the XXXX (public) data repository (in case of use). The data repository can assign a DOI to your data. This DOI should be indicated to link with them.
• Acknowledgements. It should not be assigned a number. The acknowledgements may include reference to grants or supports received in relation to the work presented in the paper.
• Authors contribution. Specify the contribution of each author of your manuscript. In any case, the list of authors can only be modified before the article has been accepted. For that modification, the corresponding author must send an email to the Editor in chief explaining i) the change produced in the list of authors, ii) the reason for such change and iii) the written acceptance of all authors of the work (including the authors included and/or excluded).

Supplementary Files

Complementary files are considered those that contain information that enriches the work or that facilitates its understanding, for example audios, videos, tables, maps, images, etc. Images, tables, graphs, etc. contained in the text are not considered complementary files, these must be included in the text in their proper location and size.

Supplementary files can be the following formats:

• Text: ASCII, Word, PDF, HTML
• Tables: Excel, Word, HTMAL, XHTML, XML
• Audio and video: AVI, MPG, Quicktime, RM, MP3, WAV
• Animation: GIF, JPEG, Flash/Shockwave
• Images: GIF, JPEG, TIFF

They will be uploaded to the platform during the submission process and will be named complementary files. You can upload as many as required.

Submission editorial process

Upon the arrival of a new submission, the editorial team will verify that it complies with the standards regarding style and content (see Focus and Scope).

If the submission is accepted, it will go to the review step, where the editorial committee will select two expert researchers who will issue evaluation reports; these reports will include an opinion regarding the opportunity of the research, methodological adequacy, bibliographic review and contribution to the area of knowledge, through the double-blind system. In case conflicting reports are issued, a third report will be requested. The reports will be tools for editorial decision-making that will fall to the editorial committee, this will be the one who communicates to the author the editorial decision that may be: accepted, accepted with minor corrections, modifications (in this case the new submission will be submitted to a new review round) or rejected. In any case, the author may question the editorial decision and communicate with the editorial team to receive the appropriate clarifications. It is the intention of the editorial committee to motivate the editorial decision and guide the author in the opportunity of his research.

A first editorial decision (acceptance or rejection) will be made in the first 3 months, and final acceptance will be made between 6-8 months after receipt. Always depending on the volume of submissions that is managed at any time.