Note from the editor

• Corne Schutte Editor: SAJIE Department of Industrial Engineering, Stellenbosch University http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0119-720X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7166/28-3-1877

Abstract

 Two communities of concern to Industrial Engineering held their annual conferences in South Africa recently: 

• the 28th annual conference of the SAIIE (SAIIE28) (25-27 Oct 2017), 
• the 18th annual international conference of the Rapid Product Development Association of South Africa (RAPDASA) (8-10 November 2017). 

 To promote the high quality of work delivered to these conferences and to encourage authors to present some of their best research, we introduced a Special Edition of the journal in 2016 in which the best research presented at the abovementioned conferences would be published. 

The same double blind peer review process and criteria used for the journal were also used in this selection process, and the feedback from all reviewers was used to score submissions to create a shortlist. Each submission on the shortlist then underwent an additional round of review, where a senior peer reviewer confirmed the selection, and the editor of the journal confirmed the suitability. 

As a consequence, this special edition has a total of 17 articles: 

• twelve originated from SAIIE28 out of a total of 66 submissions on the program, and 
• RAPDASA, five articles were selected out of 33 full papers. 

The special edition is a recipe that is working well, in that it lifts the standard of submissions at the conferences, and it creates an opportunity for young authors to have their quality work rewarded - we are thus pleased that this recipe again ended with “a good meal” and will hopefully continue to do so in years to follow! 

Corne Schutte 

Editor