Decision support systems in production planning and control

Production Planning & Control,Vol. 18, No. 1, January 2007, 1–2Special Issue EditorialDecision support systems in production planningand controlProduction planning and control is facing more andmore challenging tasks every day. Products are becom-ing more complex, manual systems are being replacedwith complex machines. The world is undergoing atechnology revolution and knowledge systems arebecoming more dominant then ever before. It seemsthat the information age will create sophisticatedsystems requiring complex decisions based on theknowledge of manufacturing and other aspects oforganizations. Moreover, traditional manufacturingenvironments are converging into knowledge-basedmanufacturing in knowledgeable societies. Thisobviously indicates the importance of decision supportsystems which can be developed in such a way that theycan utilise knowledge and handle knowledge sources aseffectively as possible.The manufacturing industry of the twenty-firstcentury will be characterised by intensive knowledge-based systems of concurrent engineering based ondigitalisation, computer network, artificial intelligence,etc. In the coming years, knowledge, agility, intelligenceand rapid response are essential requirements formanufacturing systems to favour high quality products,small batch sizes, customer requirements, and environ-mental consciousness.Taking this into account, the 4th IntelligentManufacturing Systems Symposium involved a seriesof papers discussing the decision support which could becreated by intelli gent systems. Academia and industrialpractitioners came together and exchanged the