Automation theory and technology have been widely applied to the practice of production and operations management. For instance, optimal control theory is applied to solve production control problems and consequently some threshold-type policies are proposed. Discrete event system theories are employed to schedule semiconductor wafer fabrication systems so that good wafer lots releasing and dispatching rules and vehicle scheduling policies can be designed and deadlocks can be avoided. Optimization theories are adopted to develop optimal inventory management policies. CIM technologies and RFID technologies are applied to manage, control and trace the production processes. The goal of the special session is to present the latest work on the application of automation theory and technologies in the area of production and operations management, from the perspectives of both research and practice. We hope that researchers and practitioners can report their latest work on this subject and propose some new issues for future research. The topics of this special session include but are not limited to:
- Application of optimization and control theory in production and operations management
- Application of data analysis and machine learning theory in production and operations management
- Application of discrete event system theory in production and operations management
- Application of CIM and RFID technology in production and operations management
- Case study of automation theory and technology in production and operations management