The three volumes IFIP AICT 438, 439, and 440 constitute the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2014, held in Ajaccio, France, in September 2014. The 233 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 271 submissions. They are organized in 6 parts: knowledge discovery and sharing; knowledge-based planning and scheduling; knowledge-based sustainability; knowledge-based services; knowledge-based performance improvement, and case studies.

Knowledge Management is a wide, critical and strategic issue for all the com- nies, from the SMEs to the most complex organizations. The key of competiti- ness is knowledge, because of the necessity of reactivity, flexibility, agility and innovation capacities. Knowledge is difficult to measure itself but what is visible, this is the way of improving products, technologies and enterprise organizations. During the last four years, based on the experience of most of the best experts around the World, CIRP (The International Academy for Production Engineering) has decided to prepare and structure a Network of Excellence (NoE) proposal. The European Community accepted to found the VRL-KCiP (Virtual Research La- ratory – Knowledge Community in Production). As its name indicates it, the aim of this NoE was really to build a «Knowledge Community in Production ». This was possible and realistic because the partners were representative of the most important universities in Europe and also because of strong partnerships with laboratories far from Europe (Japan, Australia, South Africa, USA, etc...). Based on such powerful partnership, the main issue was to help European manufacturing industry to define and structure the strategic knowledge in order to face the strategic worldwide challenges. Manufacturing in Europe currently has two essential aspects: 1. It has to be knowledge intensive given the European demands for high-tech products and services (e.g. electronics, medicines).

Creating Knowledge Based Organizations brings together high quality concepts and techniques closely related to organizational learning, knowledge workers, intellectual capital, and knowledge management. It includes the methodologies, systems and approaches that are needed to create and manage knowledge based organizations.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) methods have been applied to production management systems (PMS), particularly in the area of scheduling. Included in this book is a review of research and applications as well as a presentation of new results. There is a mix of papers from industry, research laboratories and academia which gives a realistic perspective on the prospects for AI technology in PMS applications. The majority of papers are concerned with the use of knowledge based techniques to solve various scheduling problems. The introductory section includes two overview papers, each presenting the views and expectations of researchers in major industrial companies who have some experience of using AI technology to solve production management problems. There follows a series of technical papers which have been grouped into five categories: Model Based and Simulation Approaches; AI and Scheduling; AI and Production Planning; The GRAI Method; AI Applications and FMS.

With the development of information technology in recent years, there is a growing need to merge different technologies and services, to develop products, services and business models that span different industries. Corporations must have processes through which they can access share, and integrate diverse knowledge. In this book, the author proposes a dynamic yet practical method for project leaders to integrate diverse knowledge distributed on projects network to develop new products, services and business models. Case studies on companies such as Vodafone, SHARP, Mitsubishi Electric, Canon, Sony, Matsushita Electric are considered. The book can be used by high-tech organizations from the standpoint of project management or team management for innovation./a

This five-volume set clearly manifests the great significance of these key technologies for the new economies of the new millennium. The discussions provide a wealth of practical ideas intended to foster innovation in thought and, consequently, in the further development of technology. Together, they comprise a significant and uniquely comprehensive reference source for research workers, practitioners, computer scientists, academics, students, and others on the international scene for years to come.

Overviews manufacturing systems from the ground up, following the same concept as in the first edition. Delves into the fundamental building blocks of manufacturing systems: manufacturing processes and equipment. Discusses all topics from the viewpoint of four fundamental manufacturing attributes: cost, rate, flexibility and quality.

Reactive scheduling is concerned with monitoring and controlling the execution of predictive schedules and making any changes required to bring them in line with unanticipated events or disturbances happening in real time. Whilst predictive scheduling has been a focus of research for many years, it is only recently that explicit attention has been given to the specific problems of reactive scheduling and the relationship between the two.This publication explores the scope and status of both existing and potential approaches to reactive scheduling. Concentration is centred on knowledge-based approaches as the importance of domain knowledge, whether stored in computers or in the brains of experienced schedulers, is becoming increasingly apparent. Contributions examine a variety of approaches ranging from reactive scheduling decision support frameworks in which the knowledge comes mainly from the human, through to completely new approaches to automated reactive scheduling such as neural networks.The book will be of particular interest to researchers, students and engineers involved in the manufacturing and software development industries. In addition to providing a significant reference volume, it also aims to stimulate increased discussion in this emerging field.

National borders are becoming increasingly open for goods and ideas and this is creating challenges both for the industrialized countries and for the developing world. Most countries wish to keep and to grow their industries and this requires the design and operation of very complex systems in such a way as to maximize jobs, profits and the quality of life in general, under quite different conditions. An improved understanding of the distinct operations, variable trade offs - indeed quite individual conceptual models of manufacturing systems in different regions is therefore necessitated.This publication addresses various aspects involved in the achievement of the aim. It presents new developments in production management methods; tools for the evaluation of them; and assessments of the adequacy of different production management methods applied to various classes of production systems. Test cases and application statistics are analysed, thereby affording a comprehensive picture of the present situation and a vision for enhanced future development.