The Encyclopedia of Production and Manufacturing Management is an encyclopedia that has been developed to serve this field as the fundamental reference work. Over the past twenty years, the field of production and operations management has grown more rapidly than ever and consequently its boundaries have been stretched in all directions. For example, in the last two decades, production and manufacturing management absorbed in rapid succession several new production management concepts: manufacturing strategy, focused factory, just-in-time manufacturing, concurrent engineering, total quality management, supply chain management, flexible manufacturing systems, lean production, and mass customization, to name a few. This explosive growth makes the need for this volume abundantly clear.