Introduction. Logistics composite modeling. Methodology for integrated manufacturing planning and control systems design. Analysis and management approaches for complex production systems. Loading and scheduling a hybrid multiproduct plant via a rule-based planning system. Production control in flexible flowshops: an example from textile manufacturing. The design and operation of flexible manufacturing shops. Constraint logic and its applications in production: an implementation using the Galileo4 language and system. Scheduling methodology: optimization and compu-search approaches I. Compu-search methodologies II: scheduling using genetic algorithms and artificial neural networks. Production scheduling using FACTOR. Author index. Subject index.

If one accepts the premise that there is no wealth without production, whether at the individual or national level, one is immediately led to the conclusion that the study of productive systems lies at the forefront of subjects that should be intensively, as well as rationally and extensively, studied to achieve the desired 'sustainable growth' of society, where the latter is defined as growth in the quality of life that does not waste the available resources in the long run. Since the end of World War II there has been a remarkable evolution in thinking about production, abetted to a large measure by the nascent field of informatics: the computer technology and the edifices that have been built around it, such as information gathering and dissemination worldwide through communication networks, software products, peripheral interfaces, etc. Additionally, the very thought processes that guide and motivate studies in production have undergone fundamental changes which verge on being revolutionary, thanks to developments in operations research and cybernetics.