Dr. Ayham Jaaron, Head of the Industrial Engineering Department at An-Najah University, participated in the Fourth International Conference for the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS-HK) in Hong Kong.

The Conference was held at the City University of Hong Kong Jan 3-4 2013. Researchers from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, the United States, Ukraine, Singapore, China, and Malaysia participated.

The Conference focused on the interdisciplinary nature of Production and Operations Management. Special sessions were offered on operations management in the higher education sector and quality systems at educational institutions. The conference’s focus on the interdisciplinary nature of production and operations recognizes the growing interaction of operations with other functional areas, such as research and development, engineering, marketing, finance, accounting, personnel, strategy, and information systems. The Fourth POMS-HK International Conference provided a forum for practitioners and academics to share their research, experience, and insights on thematic areas as well as traditional POM problems.

Dr. Jaaron presented a research paper investigating the role of ABET quality assurance program in engineering education. The paper which aimed to discuss deficiencies in the educational process was based on a case study conducted in the Faculty of Engineering at An-Najah using student surveys, instructors’ assessment documents, and semi-structured interviews. The results of the case study showed that the ABET quality assurance program allowed for identification of student development opportunities and levels of stakeholder satisfaction, while also providing educational-process documentation.

Dr. Jaaron co-authored his research paper in cooperation with Engineer Farouq Halaweh and Engineer Basheer Shahin from the ABET Centre at the Engineering Faculty of An-Najah. The paper was one of 190 papers selected for presentation at the conference.