Digital Transformation in Services Production Systems and Product Manufacturing

Dear Colleagues,

The use of technologies to transform production systems has a long history. It remains a significant contributor to the birth and development of the industrial development witnessed globally. However, the technology revolution and digitization of business activities have been pervasive since the start of millennium and remain the main drivers of the fourth industrial revolution, popularly known as Industry 4.0. While large corporations employ these potent technical instruments for a strategic transition of production system and operation activities, process innovations, and to improve their product and service offerings, small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) seem to lag. Furthermore, the events of the last year and a half, as the world has undergone a severe global health crisis due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), shows that SMEs need to adapt to the current technological trends or be left behind for good. Additionally, while product manufacturing systems have attracted significant scientific scholarship production over the years, the same cannot be said about the service production systems, which remain complex. The service production system explains structure and operation activities that enhance task execution, task effectiveness, and task efficiency, culminating in service quality and improved performance. The above discourse offers motivation for this call for papers. The Scope of the Special Issue will cover the broad areas of digital and technological transformation and sustainable development of SMEs' service production and manufacturing systems.

The area of coverage in this Special Issue includes but is not limited to Strategic Sourcing, Strategic Alliances, Service and Product Design, Supply Chain, Logistics, Operation Activities, Process Innovation, and Challenges and Opportunities.

Dr. Ikpe Justice Akpan
Prof. Dr. Bamidele Adebisi
Prof. Dr. Murali S. Shanker
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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