Industrial Engineering and Management

Dear Colleagues,

Society faces a complex set of challenges and problems, whose resolution may be short, medium, or even long-term, depending on their degree of complexity and urgency. These challenges clearly involve the need for sustainable development and a circular economy. This inclusive sustainable development is the great societal challenge of the coming years and even decades, and has already been delayed by many decades. It examines how to respond effectively, in an inclusive way, to today’s environmental, economic, and social challenges.

Organizations, and particularly enterprises, are the driving force behind societal development, through economic development and environmental care. In this way, enterprises have become increasingly large and complex. Even in management theory, approaches have changed from classical theories, after the industrial revolution, to the neo-classical theories of today, in which rigid solutions have been dropped and plans, what we would call “conditioned freedom”, have been adopted to face mass customization needs, which are very far from the mass production paradigm. To achieve this, new solutions must be created. Consequently, new tools and methods are required to embrace mass customization in a sustainable way.

In this context, the central role of industrial engineering and management (IEM) has arisen, with a holistic, systems-thinking, and ethics-based view of processes and complex systems. The IEM is not only a combination of engineering and management, but a “new” integrated applied science along the entire value chain and product and service lifecycle. It is characterized by its multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach, crossing the exact sciences, engineering sciences, information systems, and social sciences, among others. Moreover, it is particularly devoted to the analysis, design, performance improvement, and control of integrated systems of people, materials, equipment, and energy, etc. Its application fields are the whole value chain and lifecycle of products/services, from their development to their end-of-life stages.

In this sense, the research in IEM should contribute to enterprises overcoming any challenges. The topic in IEM is more than a broad multidisciplinary topic; it is an inter-multidisciplinary one, and includes operations management, supply chain management, energy management, quality management, operations research, modeling and simulation, information systems, lean and agile production, industry 4.0, and decision support methods, among others), pertinent to the continuous improvement in industrial and service systems.

Prof. Dr. João Carlos de Oliveira Matias
Dr. Paolo Renna
Topic Editors