Our rapidly changing world has forced business practitioners, in corporation with academic researchers, to respond quickly and develop effective solution methodologies and techniques to handle new challenges in supply chain systems. Supply Chain Optimization, Management and Integration: Emerging Applications presents readers with a rich collection of ideas from researchers who are bridging the gap between the latest in information technology and supply chain management. This book includes theoretical, analytical, and empirical research, comprehensive reviews of relevant research, and case studies of effective applications in the field of SCM. The use of new technologies, methods, and techniques are emphasized by those who have worked with supply chain management across the world for those in the field of information systems.

The book covers four research domains representing a trend for modern manufacturing control: Holonic and Multi-agent technologies for industrial systems; Intelligent Product and Product-driven Automation; Service Orientation of Enterprise’s strategic and technical processes; and Distributed Intelligent Automation Systems. These evolution lines have in common concepts related to service orientation derived from the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) paradigm. The service-oriented multi-agent systems approach discussed in the book is characterized by the use of a set of distributed autonomous and cooperative agents, embedded in smart components that use the SOA principles, being oriented by offer and request of services, in order to fulfil production systems and value chain goals. A new integrated vision combining emergent technologies is offered, to create control structures with distributed intelligence supporting the vertical and horizontal enterprise integration and running in truly distributed and global working environments. The service value creation model at enterprise level consists into using Service Component Architectures for business process applications, based on entities which handle services. In this componentization view, a service is a piece of software encapsulating the business/control logic or resource functionality of an entity that exhibits an individual competence and responds to a specific request to fulfil a local (product) or global (batch) objective. The service value creation model at enterprise level consists into using Service Component Architectures for business process applications, based on entities which handle services. In this componentization view, a service is a piece of software encapsulating the business/control logic or resource functionality of an entity that exhibits an individual competence and responds to a specific request to fulfil a local (product) or global (batch) objective.

This book is a groundbreaking exploration of the historical and contemporary challenges in systems collaboration and integration. This exceptional book delves into engineering design, planning, control, and management, offering invaluable insights into the evolving nature of systems and networks. In an era defined by the ongoing cyber and digital transformation, coupled with artificial intelligence and machine learning, this book offers insights into the future of systems collaboration and integration. Over the past three decades, the PRISM Center and its affiliated PRISM Global Research Network (PGRN) have spearheaded pioneering theories, technologies, and applications in the realm of systems collaboration and integration. Their research, driven by the motto “Knowledge through information; Wisdom through collaboration,” has yielded remarkable advancements. Those achievements and papers presented and updated by the PGRN scholars in the 26th ICPR are included in this book.