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/10.7166/29-3-2085

Abstract

 

 “The Fourth Industrial Revolution is still in its nascent state. But with the swift pace of change and disruption to business and society, the time to join in is now.” 

Gary Coleman, Global Industry and Senior Client Advisor, Deloitte 

Two related communities in Industrial Engineering held their annual conferences in South Africa recently: 

• the 29th annual conference of the Southern African Institute for Industrial Engineering (SAIIE29) (24-26 Oct 2018 at Spier, Stellenbosch), 
• the 19th annual international conference of the Rapid Product Development Association of South Africa (RAPDASA) (7-9 November 2018). 

 To promote the high quality of work delivered to these two 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 and rank all conference submissions to create a final shortlist. Each submission on the final shortlist was then checked for quality and suitability by the editors of the journal. 

As a consequence, this special edition has a total of 21 articles: 

• nineteen originated from SAIIE29 out of a total of 91 submissions on the program, and 
• RAPDASA, three articles were selected out of 23 full papers. 

The theme of the SAIIE29 conference was “Steering the 4th Industrial Revolution”, and for this reason, an article with a “tongue-in-the-cheek” title of “In Dis Tree – 4 What?” was selected as the feature article of this edition. This article explores the potential impact of Industry 4.0 in the South African context. 

The special edition is a recipe that is continuing to work well, in that it lifts the standard of submissions at the conferences, and it creates an opportunity for young authors to have quality work rewarded! 

Corne Schutte 

Editor