This year, the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) published its 60th volume. In issues 1 and 2 of 2022, we have presented part 1 and part 2 of the special issue with papers by Editorial Board members, explaining the vision of the Board on new research directions and more challenging issues we have to consider in the journal in the near future. This issue completes those articles with the last part of the special issue by the Board members.
Several other special issues of the journal have also either already appeared in the anniversary volume or are under review and will be published soon. I invite you to check the journal web site: www.tandfonline.com/journals/tprs20 regularly, and enjoy our outstanding publications.
The anniversary was also celebrated at the 10th IFAC triennial conference on Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control (MIM 2022) in Nantes, France, with 767 attendees and exceptional Keynote speakers: https://hub.imt-atlantique.fr/mim2022/. A large number of papers were selected at the conference and their extended versions will be present in the journal in 2023.
IJPR is one of oldest elite journals on manufacturing engineering, industrial engineering, operations research and management science. IJPR publishes around 400 papers in 24 issues (two issues per month) with more than 1.4 million downloads per year and is read in 200 countries. The current impact factor of IJPR (IF 2021) is: 9.018 (2021), positioning the journal in Q1 in all its disciplines. The average time from submission to first post-review decision is 65 days, and from acceptance to online publication is 21 days (see all the journal metrics on the web site of IJPR).
From the beginning, the policy of the journal has been focused both on real-life relevance and a strong scientific level of the research published. A very large number of cutting-edge results on major industrial decision-aid problems in design and management of production (especially manufacturing) systems and their logistics have been published in IJPR since 1961. Many of them prompted the start for a new theory and/or reported exceptional real-life applications increasing the performance of production systems. The publications of IJPR are widely cited, the list of papers cited at least 60 times is available on: www.journalpages.co.uk/ijpr-cited-60
I invite you to submit the best of your research to IJPR. Please read all related articles already published in IJPR before any submission:
www.tandfonline.com/journals/tprs20
As is mentioned in the instructions to authors on the website of the journal, the following elements are mandatory in each article submitted to IJPR:
“- An exhaustive analysis of production research literature on related topics;
- Novel decision aid models for design or management of production systems and logistics, the models should be explained for a large audience in production research;
- Comparisons with the state of the art;
- Discussion on real life applications of the proposed approach in production systems and logistics;
- Managerial insights for decision makers in industry;
- Research perspectives.”
Part 3 (Issue 24, 2022):
The issue begins with the position paper “The shortage economy and its implications for supply chain and operations management” by Dmitry Ivanov and Alexandre Dolgui on the possible implications of the shortage economy on the operations management approaches and problems. Indeed, the current situation with probable energy blackouts, actual semiconductor and container shortages, workforce deficits, and growing inflation etc., needs specific research on the consequences for supply chains and why and how the methods of operations management should be revisited and reevaluated. The authors presented some ideas based on an analysis of key literature streams that deal with resource shortages, and propose new research topics and innovative approaches, which may appear in the setting of a shortage economy.
In the review “A decade of progress in supply chain risk management: risk typology, emerging topics, and research collaborators” by Agus Wicaksana, William Ho, Srinivas Talluri and Alexandre Dolgui, the authors propose an exhaustive analysis of the state of the art in risk management. The analysis is based on a survey of the recent literature (2011–2020), and develops a novel supply chain risk holistic typology as an aid to realise and manage new risks. The article points out emerging topics and research challenges to design impactful research in supply chain risk management.
In the paper “A quantitative approach to resilience in manufacturing systems”, Kosmas Alexopoulos, Ioannis Anagiannis, Nikolaos Nikolakis and George Chryssolouris investigate the resilience not for the supply chain, but at the manufacturing plant level. The proposed innovative approach is based on calculating the penalty of possible changes. It is illustrated for two different types of manufacturing systems both under disruptions due to COVID-19: additive manufacturing, and injection molding. The authors demonstrate the performance of the proposed approaches and conclude that they are very useful and efficient in industrial applications.
Saurabh Ambulkar, Sridhar Ramaswami, Jennifer Blackhurst & M. Johnny Rungtusanatham in the article “Supply chain disruption risk: an unintended consequence of product innovation” analyze the negative consequences of product innovation creating supply chain disruptions due to product variety. The authors demonstrate operations management challenges that are associated with the innovation process. The presented research shows that it is necessary to consider the innovation jointly with the supply chain management. This empirical study was conducted with data from multiple sources: innovation-related data from firm websites, patent services websites and interviews.
“Global risk assessment for development processes: from framework to simulation” by Jelena Petronijevic, Alain Etienne and Ali Siadat introduce a simulation framework for modelling risks at a given product development step. The authors show how risk interactions are represented in the framework, how risks are hierarchically integrated and evaluated, and how the whole process is simulated. Simulations were conducted for hair dryer design. However, the framework can be used for other manufacturing systems.
Xufeng Yao, Nourah Almatooq, Ronald G. Askin & Greg Gruber in their article “Capacity planning and production scheduling integration: improving operational efficiency via detailed modelling” propose an integrated capacity and production scheduling model with discrete and continuous options, a heuristic algorithm to solve the model, as well as some comparisons of the proposed model with traditional approaches. The authors illustrate how the model can be used by means of a case study from the automotive industry.
In the article “Multi-period additive/subtractive product platform design and inventory management”, Mostafa Moussa & Hoda ElMaraghy suggest a holistic model to additive/subtractive product platform design for customised production of a product family. The problem consists of determining the optimal features of product platforms, macro process plans for customisation, the inventory, as well as the assignment of each platform to a product variant for each period. The model redesigns the product platforms as needed to meet the changing demand of each product variant, while minimising the costs. The authors employ machine learning for decision-making and smart contract policies for process control. An example of gear shaft assembly is used to illustrate the model and approach.
The ‘father’ of MRP Theory, Robert W. Grubbström in his paper “Incorporating non-empty initial states into MRP Theory” studies the consequences of having non-empty initial inventories and backlogs in production-inventory systems managed with MRP approach. Principles for finding optimal solutions are developed for assembly systems and compared to Lot-for-Lot and All-at-Once policies. The Laplace transform is used, and the modifications necessary for including non-empty initial states in MRP theory are derived. Extensive numerical examples as well as research perspectives are given.
In “Building knowledge beyond our experience: integrating sustainable development goals into IJPR’s research future”, Joseph Sarkis & Sherwat Ibrahim show the importance of sustainability issues in production research, and the role of IJPR in this area. The authors point out the islands of excellence of IJPR and gaps in the research on sustainable development goals. The authors encourage the scholars publishing in IJPR to develop this field further. A number of recommendations are given on how to expand the IJPR community experiences and knowledge to provide additional insights and to develop the discipline.
The paper by Dhirendra Prajapati, Felix T. S. Chan, Yash Daultani & Saurabh Pratap entitled “Sustainable vehicle routing of agro-food grains in the e-commerce industry” deals with the design of sustainable agro-food supply chains. Multiple local pick-up centres are planned for several types of food-grains and e-commerce is used. The problem is the selection of service providers, vehicles, suppliers, routes, etc. taking into account uncertainty related to vehicle accidents. A nonlinear integer programme is developed to minimise the total cost. Four meta-heuristics are proposed and tested to solve the mathematical model.
Fayez F. Boctor in the article “Single-machine capacitated lot-sizing and scheduling with delivery dates and quantities”, describes a new version of the lot sizing and scheduling problem for a single machine. A number of different products are processed and, for each product, there is a set of delivery dates and the quantities to deliver at each of these dates. A model and two heuristics are suggested to minimise the sum of setup and holding costs. Numerical tests are given.
“The impact of payment term extensions on the working capital management of an automotive supply chain” by Chaorui Huang, Felix T. S. Chan & S. H. Chung introduces a multi-cycle model for working capital management in the automotive industry. The proposed model identifies the cases where extended payments will affect the cash-to-cash cycle and shareholder-value added. Numerical tests and managerial insights are reported.
Siddhartha Kushwaha, Felix T.S. Chan, Kaustov Chakraborty & Saurabh Pratap in “Collection and remanufacturing channels selection under a product take-back regulation with remanufacturing target”, study manufacturing and marketing new products in multiple market regions. A product take-back regulation with a remanufacturing target. The decision makers have to decide on the channels for collecting and remanufacturing. A MILP formulation for decision-making is suggested and examined. Many insights and model limitations are discussed.
The article by Mohit Goswami, Yash Daultani, Felix T.S. Chan & Saurabh Pratap “Assessing the impact of supplier benchmarking in manufacturing value chains: an Intelligent decision support system for original equipment manufacturers”, expands the standard supplier selection problem via an analysis of the product engineering efficiency. The product engineering process is modelled in this study in terms of product engineering-related attributes such as commercial lead time, number of parts, number of green features, number of end products developed, and so on. Taking into consideration such attributes, a number of data envelopment analysis models are deployed to select suppliers.
Hoda ElMaraghy & Waguih ElMaraghy in the paper “Adaptive Cognitive Manufacturing System (ACMS) – a new paradigm”, consider new trends in manufacturing systems. An emerging concept of Adaptive Cognitive Manufacturing Systems is presented. The authors analyze its drivers, enablers, and characteristics. They discuss different classes of adaptation in manufacturing systems: static, dynamic, cognitive, and extreme adaptation. The article expands on the human’s role in the manufacturing system flexibility and adaptability, and discusses the Cognitive Digital Twins (CDT), their features, evolution, and their use in supporting humans in intelligent and collaborative manufacturing settings.
Abdelrahman E. E. Eltoukhy, Z. X. Wang, I. A. Shaban & Felix T. S. Chan in the paper “Coordinating aircraft maintenance routing and integrated maintenance staffing and rostering: a Stackelberg game theoretical model”, investigate the interdependence between operational-based flight delay aircraft maintenance routing and maintenance staffing problems. A Stackelberg game is developed and analyzed. The model is based on a bi-level mixed integer linear programme. The tests are reported as demonstrating a significant cost saving.
The article by Zhaohui Geng, Arman Sabbaghi & Bopaya Bidanda “A framework of tolerance specification for freeform point clouds and capability analysis for reverse engineering processes”, proposes a novel approach for tolerance specification, inspection, and process capability analysis. The suggested framework is based on the computational geometrical knowledge and statistical methodology. Research gaps are identified and an agenda for further research is suggested.
In the article “Microservices-based cloud-edge collaborative condition monitoring platform for smart manufacturing systems”, Hanbo Yang, S. K. Ong, A. Y. C. Nee, Gedong Jiang & Xuesong Mei present some advanced ideas on cloud-edge collaborative computing in manufacturing. The suggested architecture encapsulates distributed resources into manufacturing services. The authors show that this is an effective way to address the explosive growth of industrial data in manufacturing systems. The effectiveness of the proposed platform is validated via a case study of a manufacturing line.
A paper on a very hot topic by Burcu Balcik, Ecem Yucesoy, Berna Akca, Sirma Karakaya, Asena A. Gevsek, Hossein Baharmand & Fabio Sgarbossa “A mathematical model for equitable in-country COVID-19 vaccine allocation” proposes an efficient approach to ensure a balanced vaccine allocation among the regions of a country, to minimise deviations from the levels computed with weighted pro-rata rations. The model also imposes minimum coverage thresholds to control the allocation of vaccines to higher priority groups and regions. The model is compared with other models of vaccine allocation recently published. This paper presents the outcome of the research project CONTRA: COVID-19 Network Technology-based Responsive Action funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Rohit Sharma, Anjali Shishodia, Angappa Gunasekaran, Hokey Min & Ziaul Haque Munim in their review paper “The role of artificial intelligence in supply chain management: mapping the territory” describe the state of the art on applications of the Artificial Intelligence in supply chain management. This research is based on analysis of publications in business and management journals, so it is oriented to scholars in business schools and decision makers in industry. The bibliometric data are analyzed, main trends are revealed and explained. The current limitations are pointed out and a research agenda is proposed.
Another article on the application of Artificial Intelligence is “Matchmaking in reward-based crowdfunding platforms: a hybrid machine learning approach” by Shaojian Qu, Lei Xu, Sachin Kumar Mangla, Felix T. S. Chan, Jianli Zhu & Sobhan Arisian. A clustering approach is employed, allowing an increase in the product crowd-funding rate. The data collected from crowd-funding websites is treated, the association rules of relevant backers are analyzed, and similar backers are clustered. Training algorithms are used. The numerical tests illustrate the accuracy and precision of the techniques developed.
In the paper by Xi Gu and Yoram Koren “Mass-Individualization – the twenty-first century manufacturing paradigm”, the emerging paradigm of mass-individualization is discussed. In mass-individualization, the clients initiate the product and its features following their individual needs, and the manufacturer produces it at a low as possible cost in a local factory. In this framework, the authors analyze product development, manufacturing system design and operations, manufacturing network development, and suggest new research directions.
Yuanfu Li, Jinwei Chen, Zhenchao Hu, Huisheng Zhang, Jinzhi Lu & Dimitris Kiritsis’ paper “Co-simulation of complex engineered systems enabled by a cognitive twin architecture” propose an innovative idea of co-simulation for cognitive twins, and demonstrate how it can be used in the design of a complex engineered system. An ontology-based methodology is employed to develop the twin architecture. Then co-simulation procedures are developed. The purpose of co-simulation is to accomplish some specific objectives, such as fault diagnosis, status monitoring, and performance prediction. A case study from real life concerning a gas turbine is reported and discussed. The research perspectives are drawn.
Finally, the article “The emergence of cognitive digital twin: vision, challenges and opportunities” by Xiaochen Zheng, Jinzhi Lu & Dimitris Kiritsis, gives us a review on the new concept of cognitive digital twin, which is an important evolution of digital twins. The cognitive digital twin concept is new, and has not been developed in detail until now. The authors analyze existing publications and realizations, and explain many challenges and open issues. The main characteristics of cognitive digital twins are reported and exact definitions are given. A reference architecture based on RAMI4.0 is proposed.