Overview of the Special Issue on Intelligent Manufacturing Systems

The concept of an "intelligent manufacturing system" (IMS) is a very broad one that has come to playa major role in manufacturing research in recent years. It is a concept that defies precise definition because one major research objective is to couple almost human levels of intelligence with advanced manufacturing technology in order to develop new generations of manufacturing systems that are agile in their capabilities, as are people. However, science does not yet provide us with deep and widely accepted models of how people achieve such agility, and researchers in IMS must therefore adopt engineering pragmatism and target their research on improvement and innovation in manufacturing processes that address the weaknesses of existing systems that are not agile, not intelligent, not adaptive, and so on. Intelligence is a term more readily defined in terms of its absence than in the particular characteristics that define its presence. Problems of definition have not impeded research, however, and the international manufacturing research community is collaborating highly effectively in a wide-ranging series of projects under the aegis of intelligent manufacturing. This special issue presents the background to these projects, the structure of the international IMS research program, and a range of examples of advanced research on, and practical applications of, intelligent manufacturing systems. Much of the inspiration for the international IMS research program came from concepts developed by Dr. Yoshikawa, President of Tokyo University, who saw the need for a "post mass production paradigm" that was capable of sustaining economic