Summary

New results in the area of production management and information systems for the Factory of the Future are presented in this volume. The fifty-seven papers are by manufacturing, computing and production management professionals from academia, industry and government. The first three chapters examine scheduling methods and applications in flexible manufacturing systems, as well as heuristic algorithms for flow shop scheduling and loading. Chapter 4 deals with simulation in production management, while Chapters 5, 6 and 7 discuss planning and control problems in management systems. Chapters 8 and 9 involve modelling and manufacturing control. Chapter 10 is devoted to group technology and process planning. Expert systems, a new tool in production management, is the topic of Chapter 11, and the last chapter discusses productivity and human factor issues in manufacturing systems.