Preface

摘要

This issue contains a selection of papers first presented at the 21st International Conference on Production Research which was held in Stuttgart Germany, returning to the home of the German automobile industry after a gap of 25 years. The highly successful biennial ICPR conferences, organised under the auspices of the International Foundation for Production Research, were originally conceived to stimulate high quality research papers for the Journal, and the resulting special issues provide a valuable archive of the changing nature of production research over the past 40 years. The automobile provides a useful metaphor for these changes: whilst many of the basic technologies remain the same, the processes have been highly automated, defects are now measured in parts per million and maintenance requirements are reduced, designs are much more innovative, electronics now play a major role in every aspect of design and performance, the cars are much more fuel efficient and easier to handle, markets are global, customers have much more choice, and production and distribution depends upon a co-ordinated web of suppliers.