Information Technology for Balanced Manufacturing Systems: IFIP TC 5, WG 5.5 Seventh International Conference on Information Technology for Balanced Automation Systems in Manufacturing and Services, Niagra Falls, Ontario, Canada, September 4-6, 2006

The manufacturing sector has been facing major challenges as it undergoes revolutionary changes fuelled by new and sophisticated demands from customers, global competition, distribution of manufacturing and marketing activities, and technological advances. In order to address these challenges, manufacturing enterprises need to change the way they do business and adopt innovative technologies and solutions to increase their responsiveness and production efficiency. Information technology pla...