With machine tools evolving with the hardware and control whose dramatic advances are expanding the field, requirements for performance have grown tougher. These have made it more complicated to design, produce, and maintain machine tool systems. This has also ensured that performance evaluation and prediction technology play an increasingly important and active role in these areas. Green manufacturing technology (GM) and green supply chain management (GrSCM) are becoming increasingly important as awareness of global warming, energy security, pollution, metal shortages, etc., grow. Although sustainability has economic and social dimensions, the objective of GMand GrSCM is to enhance environmental sustainability. IJAT published a special issue on Design and Manufacturing Toward Sustainability in January 2009. Global manufacturing networks and eco-city projects are increasingly widespread. This special issue therefore includes GrSCM, and eco-business issues, together with GM and green-product design. The focus here is on opening a scientific discussion on these topics through considering which challenges should be addressed. This special issue covers the following proposals: 1. Key success factors and eco-business methodology 2. Efficient scheduling algorithms for production, logistics, and projects as economic improvement becomes more environmentally friendly 3. Simulation for analyzing supply chain robustness 4. Surveys summarizing conventional studies related to green supply chains Since the proposed topics in this special issue are somewhat limited, we encourage you to new promising topics. Most conventional GrSCM and sustainable supply-chain studies, for example, cover only concepts and surveys. Efficient algorithms for logistics in factories or supply chains are not new to the academic field. We encourage young researchers to move away from already mined areas to more challenging subjects. Another example is the socio-technical approach which needs various research fields such as economics, business, policy, and life-cycle assessment because stakeholders include governments, people and enterprises. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the authors for their submissions and to the reviewers for their invaluable efforts. Without these, this special issue could not have been published. This special issue on machine tool evaluation should prove especially interesting to researchers and engineers engaged in the enhancement of accuracy, efficiency, and versatility in machine tool systems, including the important disciplines of tooling and cutting tools. The topics that are covered in this special issue include – but are not limited to – the metrology of machine tools, the identification of kinematic errors through machine tool geometry, the evaluation of thermal deformation, the dynamic analysis of machine tools, the evaluation of spindle stiffness, and cutting-edge monitoring technology. All of these provide advanced knowledge concerning that state-of-the-art of technology required to ensure that machine tool design continues to remain innovative. I would like to close here by expressing my sincere appreciation to all those who have worked to make this issue interesting and informative. My special thanks go to the authors of the featured articles and to the reviewers whose invaluable efforts have made this publication possible.
Linking key success factors of rice supply chain with the operational strategy in Sri Lanka: An analytical framework
