The conference theme, ‘To Serve, to Produce and to Servitize in the Era of Networks, Big Data, and Analytics’, was directed at realising EurOMA’s grand vision in this digital age via the provision of practical and innovative solutions to issues in services, manufacturing and capability development.

Principal organizer on behalf of Széchenyi István University was Professor Gyula Vastag, Director of the Management PhD Program (szeeds.sze.hu). Other organisers included Professor Tamás Koltai from Budapest Technical University and Professor László Monostori of The Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Plenary speakers of the Conference were Professors Wallace J. Hopp (“The Big Data Revolution in Health Care”, University of Michigan, USA), Bart L. MacCarthy (“Mass Customization: Does It Exist? Are We There Yet?”, University of Nottingham, UK) and Dr László György (“Higher Education for Innovation”, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology). The latter was a last-minute substitute for Professor László Palkovics who moved from the position of State Secretary Responsible for Higher Education at the Ministry of Human Resources to the ministership of the newly formed Ministry of Innovation and Technology.

Over the three main days of the Conference, of the 690 abstracts originally submitted for consideration, after a thorough review process 437 full papers in 20 different tracks were presented in the parallel sessions. Supply Chain Management in Manufacturing (69 papers), Operational Excellence (38 papers) and Servitization and Service Innovation in the Digital Age (37 papers) were the most prominent tracks. Széchenyi István University was prominently represented both in conference organization and in the presented papers. Regarding the former, the ‘Entrepreneurial University’ Track was co-chaired by Tibor Dőry, Bálint Filep (both from Széchenyi) and Guido Nassimbeni (University of Udine, Italy). Papers were presented both by Széchenyi faculty members (Katalin Czakó, Krishna Dhir, Tibor Dőry, Boglárka Eisinger-Balassa, Bálint Filep, Zsolt Kovács, Péter Németh) and PhD students (László Buics, Thomas Ladinig, Ákos Országh, Attila Sóti, Kinga Szabó, Máté Tóth).

The programme for Day 4 of the 25th EurOMA Conference consisted of an optional Plant Tour and Cultural Visit to the city of Győr.  After a short overview presentation of Audi Hungária, the EurOMA group toured the most flexible engine production facility of Audi AG. Following lunch, conference participants visited the world famous Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma, one of the oldest historical monuments in Hungary.