The Journal of Manufacturing Systems publishes state-of-the-art fundamental and applied research in manufacturing at systems level. Manufacturing systems are comprised of products, equipment, people, information, control and support functions for the economical and competitive development, production, delivery and total lifecycle of products to satisfy market and societal needs.

The aim of the Journal of Manufacturing Systems is to publish archival scholarly literature with the goal of advancing the state of the art in manufacturing systems and encouraging innovation in developing efficient, robust and sustainable manufacturing systems. Pertinent to the Journal is research that will impact emerging manufacturing systems from the equipment level to the extended enterprise. Challenges are addressed within and across various scales including nano, micro and macro-scale manufacturing, as well as within and across broad sectors including aerospace, automotive, energy and medical device manufacturing.

The scope of the Journal of Manufacturing Systems includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

    Factory and production network design, process planning, assembly planning, scheduling;
    Smart sensor networks, real-time monitoring, distributed system control;
    Human-machine interaction, human-robot collaborative assembly, operator ergonomics;
    Multi-physics modelling, simulation and optimisation, virtual and augmented reality in manufacturing;
    Diagnosis and prognosis, predictive maintenance, lifecycle analysis, product-service systems;
    Design and operation for sustainability, energy efficiency in production and logistics;
    Global and regional production networks, material handling, logistics;
    Mass customisation and personalisation, complexity management;
    Cyber-physical production systems, big data analytics and machine learning, industrial Internet;
    Systems issues related to additive and subtractive manufacturing, micro-electromechanical systems.

Papers addressing related emerging topics are encouraged, and special-topic issues on emerging topics will be considered.
The Journal of Manufacturing Systems is an official journal of Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), in cooperation with the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME (NAMRI/SME).