Tardy Papers

An effective way to improve time-sensitive service systems is to reduce the right tail of the customer waiting time distribution. The following process aims to reduce the right tail of the review time distribution for submitted papers.

1. After a newly submitted paper has been with an Area Editor for 4 months, the Managing Editor contacts the Area Editor for a status report. If the paper has not been processed by the 5-month mark, then the Managing Editor contacts the Associate Editor to get a status report. If a referee's report is still outstanding at 6 months, then the Managing Editor and/or Editor-in-Chief will contact the referee. At this point, the referee has two options: he/she can agree to withdraw from the paper (and a new referee is sought) or can commit to producing a report within a month (i.e., by the end of month 7). If the referee chooses the latter option but fails to produce a report by the agreed-upon date, then the referee receives a demerit and a new referee is sought.
2. The process for dealing with the first revisions is the same as in (1) above, except the time epochs are reduced from 4 to 3, 5 to 4, 6 to 5, and 7 to 6 months, respectively. All subsequent revisions should be completed in no more than two months.
3. The Managing Editor maintains an electronic list of the number of times that a referee has kept an original (revised) paper longer than 6 (4) months (i.e., the Managing Editor and/or Editor-in-Chief had to contact the referee) and the number of demerits received by a referee. This list will be distributed to all Area Editors and Associate Editors, but will not be made available to the community at large.
4. Sanctions are imposed on any referee who receives 3 demerits. This referee will be unable to submit any papers to Operations Research for a duration of time that is at least 1 year but no more than 3 years. The referee can reduce the sanction duration (but not to less than 1 year) by successfully completing a referee's report on a subsequent paper for Operations Research. After a referee receives 2 sanctions, frequent communication between the Managing Editor and the referee will be maintained, so that the referee clearly understands the ramifications of his/her inaction.
5. Although the Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief will also monitor Associate Editors who have received referees' reports but have not written their own report, at this point we plan to deal with tardy Associate Editors on a case-by-case basis.

A few final comments are in order. First, this process will remain flexible enough to accommodate unusually difficult papers, personal issues (e.g., health, divorce, etc.) that the reviewers are struggling with. To ensure flexibility in this process, the Area Editor and the Associate Editor have the option of allowing a referee additional time to handle an unusually difficult paper, and no demerits are incurred without the consent of the Area Editor.

Second, our goal is not to punish referees; aside from the authors, they are the journal's most valuable resource. Rather, our goal is to bring closure to papers that appear headed for very lengthy delays.

Third, the annual Meritorious Service Award for outstanding referees is our only concrete, positive incentive.

Our hope is that the presence of the monitoring process will deter referees from generating unsatisfactory delays in the review process. The resulting reductions in the review times should benefit our entire community, particularly our tenure-track faculty.