Matthias Thürer is Distinguished Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Jinan University, Zhuhai (P.R. China). He holds a Master from the Technical University Berlin (Germany) and a Ph.D. from the University of Coimbra (Portugal). In 2016 Matthias received a Shingo Research Award for its contribution to operational excellence, in 2017 a Pearl River (PR) Scholar Award (珠江学者特聘教授) for its academic contribution, and in 2019 a Guangdong Cooperation Award (广东省科技合作奖) for his research and contribution to the development of Guangdong province in the context of Industry 4.0. Simple control for complex shops is one of Matthias’ main research interests. He contributed to the improvement, simplification and integration of material flow control systems, and their integration with Industry 4.0, in journals such as the International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Manufacturing Systems, European Journal of Operational Research, Production Planning & Control, Production & Operations Management and Transportation Science. He is also an author of the Shingo Research Award winning book Card-based Control Systems for a Lean Work Design: The Fundamentals of Kanban, ConWIP, POLCA and COBACABANA published with Productivity Press and two volumes of An Introduction to Lean Work Design published with Business Expert Press. He maintains a broad research network, regularly visiting Universities such as Lancaster University (UK), the University of Clemson (US), Michigan State University (US), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (US), the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), Hong Kong University (HK), the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan) and the Federal University of São Carlos (Brazil). Matthias obtained more than 500.000 USD funding, including individual and general funds from institutions as the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). He executed several company projects and constantly seeks to improve the way Operation Management is taught. Before getting involved in academia, Matthias worked in several companies, did an apprenticeship, and became a master craftsman (‘Meister’). Apart from Operations Management, Matthias is interested in social and philosophical issues including system theory, cybernetics, causality, and the philosophy of science. 

Lin Ma is a Ph.D. Student in Management Science and Engineering at the School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou (P.R. China). He holds a Master from Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an (P.R. China). Production Bottleneck Management for high variety make-to-order shops is one of his main research interests. He is also interested in intelligent manufacturing, including digital twins and production-logistics synchronization. He published two papers in the International Journal of Production Research. In his free time, Lin Ma is interested in architectural engineering, literature, basketball and table tennis. He obtained a Qualification of Construction Engineer (Ⅱ) certificate in the field of architectural engineering. 

Liu Lei is a Ph.D. Student in Management Science and Engineering at the School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou (P.R. China). He holds a Master from Chongqing University of Post and Telecommunications, Chongqing (P.R. China). His main research interests are operation optimization, data mining, the use of intelligent systems in industrial engineering, data-driven decision making and reinforcement learning.  In his free time he is interested in science fiction films and literature. 

Hansheng Lin is a Master student in Management Science and Engineering at the School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou (P.R. China). His research interest include inventory optimization configuration, online order fulfilment, and omni-channel retailing. He currently investigates how to reduce the operating cost of a distribution network of a physical retail enterprises that uses offline and online sales channels. In his free time he is interested in literature. 

Mingze Yuan is a Master student in Management Science and Engineering at the School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou (P.R. China). Her research focuses on optimized production control. In her free time she is interested in literature, logic, badminton and playing the Chinese zither. 

Jing Huang is a Bachelor student in Industrial Engineering at Jinan University, Zhuhai (P.R. China). Her research focuses on the interface between simulation and optimization in the context of intelligent manufacturing.  In her free time she is interested in literature and art. 

Shanshan Li is a Bachelor student in Industrial Engineering at Jinan University, Zhuhai (P.R. China). Her research focuses on simulation and production logistics in the context of intelligent manufacturing.  In her free time she is interested in badminton, running, reading and handcraft.