This volume aims at giving an updated account of the most relevant issues in the area of Flexible Manufacturing Systems with special emphasis to the problems of Simulation, Modelling, Planning, Scheduling, Economical Evaluation. A tutorial description of these topics is provided from the perspective of Operations Research. Both stochastic and deterministic models are taken into consideration and real world applications are considered. An annotated bibliography is provided at the end of the volume. Contributions: Akella: Real time part dispatch in flexible assembly, test and manufacturing systems; Arbib, Lucertini, Nicol : Optimization models for FMS; Archetti, Sciomachen: Development, analysis and simulation of Petri net models: an application to AGV systems; Buzacott: Flexible models of FMS, and Modelling FMS; Filippini, Rovetta: Economic aspects in factory automation in relation to system flexibility; Fishman: Statistical considerations in the simulation of FMS; Jovane: Flexible automation, a need for industry - a challenge for research; Maione, Fanti, Turchiano: Large scale Markov chain modelling of transfer lines; Romanin-Jacur: FMS queueing network.
Models theory and applications; Serafini, Ukovich, Kirchner, Giardina, Tiozzo: Job shop scheduling, a case study; Taylor: Advanced robotics in FMS; Villa: Hierarchical architectures for production planning and control; Deserti, Giraldo: FMS, a classification of recent literature.