Encyclopedia of Production & Manufacturing Management

The Encyclopedia of Production and Manufacturing Management is an encyclopedia that has been developed to serve this field as the fundamental reference work. Over the past twenty years, the field of production and operations management has grown more rapidly than ever and consequently its boundaries have been stretched in all directions. For example, in the last two decades, production and manufacturing management absorbed in rapid succession several new production management concepts: manufacturing strategy, focused factory, just-in-time manufacturing, concurrent engineering, total quality management, supply chain management, flexible manufacturing systems, lean production, mass customization, and more. It is clear that with the increasing globalization of manufacturing, the field will continue to expand. This expositive growth makes the need for this volume abundantly clear. The Encyclopedia's audience is a technically diverse one. It includes anyone concerned with manufacturing techniques, methods, and manufacturing decisions. Since this audience encompasses many professional educational backgrounds and skills, the Encyclopedia's organization has been developed with sensitivity to the form, format, and scope of each of its articles. The articles are fundamentally designed to serve as initial sources of information for all readers, with special emphasis on the needs of students and practitioners. In addition, most researchers in manufacturing deal fairly exclusively with a limited number of manufacturing areas. Hence, the Encyclopedia provides the researcher with an effective reference tool covering the broad spectrum of topics (new and classic) in production and manufacturing management.