In today's competitive world, industries are focusing on shorter lead times, improved quality, reduced cost, increased profit, improved productivity and better customer service. As ERP and other information management systems have been widely implemented, information growth poses new challenges to decision makers in areas ranging from shop floor control to supply chain management and design.

Frontiers in Computing Technologies for Manufacturing Applications presents an overview of the state-of-the-art intelligent computing in manufacturing. Modeling, data processing, algorithms and computational analysis of difficult problems found in advanced manufacturing are discussed. It is the first book to bring together combinatorial optimization, information systems and fault diagnosis and monitoring in a consistent manner. Techniques are presented in order to aid decision makers needing to consider multiple, conflicting objectives in their decision processes. In particular, the use of metaheuristic optimization techniques for multi-objective problems is discussed. Readers will learn about computational technologies that can improve the performance of manufacturing systems ranging from manufacturing equipment to supply chains.

Frontiers in Computing Technologies for Manufacturing Applications will be of interest to students in industrial and mechanical engineering as well as information engineers needing practical examples for the successful integration of information in manufacturing applications. The book will also appeal to technical decision makers involved in production planning, logistics, supply chain, industrial ecology, manufacturing information systems, fault diagnosis and monitoring.

Autorentext

Yoshiaki Shimizu is a professor in the Production Systems Engineering department at Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan. Professor Shimizu received his BSc, MEng and PhD in chemical engineering from Kyoto University. After graduate school, Prof. Shimizu was employed by Kyoto University where he carried out research on nuclear waste management and reactor safety. His current research interests include life cycle engineering, network design approaches for distribution systems, multi-objective optimization, meta-heuristic algorithms, and supply chain management. He is a member of the Society of Chemical Engineers of Japan, the Society of Mechanical Engineers of Japan, the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers of Japan, the Institute of Systems of Japan, the Control and Information Engineers Society of Japan and the Operation Research Society of Japan.

Zhong Zhang is a professor of the Production Systems Engineering department at Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan. He received his Bachelor engineering and Master engineering degrees in 1982 and 1984 respectively, from Xi'an Highway University, China, and his Doctor engineering degree in 1993 from Okayama University, Japan. He is a member of the Society of Mechanical Engineers of Japan; the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers of Japan; Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan; Research Institute of Signal Processing, Japan; Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan; IEEE.

Rafael Batres is an associate professor of industrial systems engineering at Toyohashi University of Technology, Japan. His research interests include engineering safety, process synthesis, multi-agent systems, and ontologies. Rafael holds MS and PhD degrees in process systems engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Society of Chemical Engineers of Japan, the Artificial Intelligence Society of Japan, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Society for Engineering Education.

Inhalt
Metaheuristic Optimization in Certain and Uncertain Environments.- Multi-objective Optimization Through Soft Computing Approaches.- Cellular Neural Networks in Intelligent Sensing and Diagnosis.- The Wavelet Transform in Signal and Image Processing.- Integration of Information Systems.- Summary.