Acknowledgements
First, our acknowledgements and greatest thanks go to Prof. Stephen Newman, Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (IJCIM), and Dr Aydin Nassehi, Managing Editor, for their highest support and professionalism and, more importantly, their highest collaboration, understanding and patience during the development of this Special Issue. Next, our acknowledgements go to the authors, for their contributions and collaboration and especially to the authors who also served as reviewers, and other reviewers, for their great effort during the review process and for the suggestions they provided to the authors, without which this complex and challenging project would not have been made possible.