Minitrack Introduction

In many countries of the whole world there is a transition from the classical production orientation into the direction of a service society. In the past, a substantial part of scientific research was (and still is) focused on supporting, optimizing and automizing manufacturing. Now, because economies are shifting, research needs to pay more attention to the design, management and engineering of services. IBM has created "Service Sciences, Management and Engineering "hoping" to bring together ongoing work in computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences to develop the skills required in a service-led economy".