XIX
Stephen Kahne, Embry-Riddle University
Dimitris Kiritsis, EFPL, Switzerland
Hoo Sang Ko, Purdue University
Renata Konrad, Purdue University
Troy Kostek, Purdue University
Nicholas Kottenstette, University of Notre Dame
Diego Krapf, Colorado State University
Steve Landry, Purdue University
Marco Lara Gracia, University of Southern Indiana
Jean-Claude Latombe, Stanford University
Seokcheon Lee, Purdue University
Mark Lehto, Purdue University
Heejong Lim, LG Display, Korea
Bakhtiar B. Litkouhi, GM R&D Center
Yan Liu, Wright State University
Joachim Meyer, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Gaines E. Miles, Purdue University
Daiki Min, Purdue University
Jasmin Nof, University of Maryland
Myounggyu D. Noh, Chungnam National Univer-
sity, Korea
Nusa Nusawardhana, Cummins, Inc.
Tal Oron-Gilad, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Namkyu Park, Ohio University
Jimena Pascual, Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso,
Chile
Anatol Pashkevich, Inst. Recherce en Communica-
tion et Cybernetique, Nantes, France
Gordon Pennock, Purdue University
Carlos Eduardo Pereira, Federal University of Rio
Grande do Sul, Brazil
Guillermo Pinochet, Kimberly Clark Co., Chile
Arik Ragowsky, Wayne State University
Jackie Rees, Purdue University
Timothy I. Salsbury, Johnson Controls, Inc.
Gavriel Salvendy, Tsinghua University, China
Ivan G. Sears, GM Technical Center
Ramesh Sharda, Oklahoma State University
Mirosław J. Skibniewski, University of Maryland
Eugene Spafford, Purdue University
Jose M. Tanchoco, Purdue University
Mileta Tomovic, Purdue University
Jocelyn Troccaz, IMAG Institut d’Ingénierie de
l’Information de Santé, France
Jay Tu, North Carolina State University
Juan Diego Velásquez, Purdue University
Sandor M. Veres, University of Southampton, UK
Matthew Verleger, Purdue University
Francois Vernadat, Cour des Comptes Europeenne,
Luxembourg
Birgit Vogel-Heuser, University of Kassel, Germany
Edward Watson, Louisiana State University
James W. Wells, GM R&D Manufacturing Systems
Research
Ching-Yi Wu, Purdue University
Moshe Yerushalmy, MBE Simulations, Israel
Yuehwern Yih, Purdue University
Sang Won Yoon, Purdue University
Yih-Choung Yu, Lafayette College
Firas Zahr, Cleveland Clinic Foundation
I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation
also to my resourceful coauthors, colleagues and part-
ners from IFAC, IFPR, IFIP, IIE, NSF, TRB, RIA,
INFORMS, ACM, IEEE-ICRA, ASME, and PRISM
Center at Purdue and PGRN, the PRISM Global Re-
search Network, for all their support and cooperation
leading to the successful creationof thisSpringer Hand-
book.
Special thanks to my late parents, Dr. Jacob and
Yafa Berglas Nowomiast, whose brilliance, deep appre-
ciation to scholarship, and inspiration keep enriching
me; tomy wife Nava forher invaluablesupport and wise
advice; to Moriah, Jasmin, Jonathan, Haim, Daniel, An-
drew, Chin-Yin, Jose, Moshe, Ed, Ruth, Pornthep, Juan
Ernesto, Richard, Wootae, Agostino,Daniela, Tibor,Es-
ther, Pat, David, Yan, Gad, Guillermo, Cristian, Carlos,
Fay, Marco, Venkat, Masayuki, Hans, Laszlo, Georgi,
Arturo, Yael, Dov, Florin, Herve, Gerard, Gavriel, Lily,
Ted, Isaac, Dan, Veronica, Rolf, Yukio, Steve, Mark,
Colin, Namkyu, Wil, Aditya, Ken, Hannah, Anne, Fang,
Jim, Tom, Frederique, Alexandre, Coral, Tetsuo, and
Oren, and to Izzy Vardinon, for sharing with me their
thoughts, smiles, ideas and their automation exper-
tise. Deep thanks also to Juan Diego Velásquez, to
Springer-Verlag’s Tom Ditzinger, Werner Skolaut and
Heather King, and the le-tex team for their tremen-
dous help and vision in completing this ambitious
endeavor.
The significant achievements of humans with au-
tomation, in improving our life quality, innovating and
solving seriousproblems, and enriching our knowledge;
inspiring people to enjoy automation and provoking us
to learn how to invent even better and greater automa-
tion solutions; the wonders and magic, opportunities
and challenges with emerging and future automation –
are all enormous. Indeed, automation is an essential and
wonderful part of human civilization.
Shimon Yeshayahu Nof Nowomiast
West Lafayette, Indiana
May 2009