Welcome to the first issue of the International Journal of Sustainable Engineering (IJSE), in this, our ninth year of publication. The Editorial Team would like to outline a number of updates in our reviewing and publication procedures for the benefits of our existing and potential authors, reviewers and other contributors.
| (1) | As per the consultation with our Editorial Board members regarding the scope of papers published in IJSE, reported in the Editorial of 8 (1), a number of submissions received throughout 2015 have been redirected during the initial screening by the Editor-in-Chief to more suitable specialised sustainability journals such as Sustainable Tourism, Transportation, Construction and Built Environment. We would like to thank the authors of these redirected papers for their understanding and support during this transitional time for IJSE. | ||||
| (2) | Due to growth in overall IJSE submissions, we have had to make a decision not to proceed with the reviewing of some papers where there has been an unusually high number of manuscripts in a very specific thematic area, in particular where there has been significant overlap in the list of contributing authors. | ||||
| (3) | The rapid proliferation in the number and range of sustainability-related submissions has resulted in a significant demand for expert reviewers of manuscripts by emerging journals and online open access publishers. Consequently, this has impacted the ability of the editorial teams of journals (including the IJSE) to identify suitable and available reviewers for submitted papers and to ensure that the reviewing process is carried out in the allotted time. We are grateful to our authors for their patience during our reviewing process. In this context, we are unable to guarantee set time completion of reviewing for those authors who are in need of publication as part of fulfilment of their postgraduate study requisites. | ||||
| (4) | Due to requirements by our publisher to improve the efficiency in the processing of submissions, we are unable to forward manuscripts that are suffering from poor English or formatting errors to our Production Team at Taylor & Francis. Therefore, a request for reformatting will be sent by the IJSE Team during final revision stage, and we are unable to proceed with the publication of the paper unless these alterations are undertaken in full by the authors. | ||||
To underpin the importance of energy conservation and environmental benefit, this milestone issue of IJSE presents six research papers exploring various manufacturing processes. These papers cover a broad range of industrial activities from mining to automotive production.
The first paper by Najjar and Waite opens this issue by considering one of the most energy intensive industries: the cement industry; and proposes an organic Rankine cycle to recover the exhausted energy from the kiln with a capital cost recovery period of only 1.26 years.
The second paper by Mousavi et al. combines unit process energy consumption models with production system simulation yielding more efficient production and process planning. They present two case studies showing the benefits of this approach – one in a flexible job-shop and the other for a case involving one purpose-built process and one dynamic process with single adjustable process parameters. This is followed by a paper by Omar et al. that proposes a hybrid simulation model of discrete and continuous modes designed to predict energy consumption and flows within an automotive production facility. The purpose of the hybrid simulation is to account for the energy consumed in manufacturing, air tempering and in maintaining equipment with large thermal inertia in an idle state. Model results are found to be in agreement with plant-recorded data.
The fourth paper by Catarino et al. looks at the challenge of having the mineral industry manage efficiently the resources on which their business depends. The eco-efficiency project directed at marble extraction in Portugal enables the integration of sustainability by combining wealth creation with environmental protection and social benefits. Then, the paper by Jayakrishna et al. continues with the theme of environment and society by developing a Graph Theory model to measure the performance and inter-relationship between the sustainability enablers in an organisation, thereby quantitatively measuring the extent to which ‘Sustainable Manufacturing’ practices are being followed by an organisation.
The final paper in this issue by Pajunen et al. studies the value of sustainability in the process and mining industry from the perspective of interest groups such as investors, customers and the public, by using case examples.
To enable our authors to reach their desired audiences, we are pleased to announce that IJSE offers a Gold open access option (Open Select), whereby authors can choose to publish in the journal and pay an article publishing charge to make the article freely available. Alternatively, articles can be published via the usual route and archive the Original or Accepted Manuscript (Green open access). To this end, IJSE is now compliant with the growing requirements of international funding bodies for open access publication. For more information visit the Taylor & Francis Author Services OA page at: http://www.journalauthors.tandf.co.uk/preparation/OpenAccess.asp.
Throughout 2016, we will be extending and renewing the Editorial Board Membership of IJSE and welcome applications from suitable candidates both in specific geographical locations such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) and non-OECD countries, and from within specific subject areas such as material engineering, emerging technologies, ICT and systems engineering, corporate social responsibility, and business modelling and management.
Finally, we are keen to increase the publication of special issues, and as such, would like to invite contributions and suggestions for our future special issues from those conference organisers and engineers who wish to act as special issue Editors for IJSE.
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