EDITORIAL: Advancing Industrial Innovation and Human-Centric Technologies in the Era of AI

Abstract

In 2025, International Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (IJIEM) received so far over 350 manuscript submissions, marking a clear signal of the vibrant growth of industrial engineering and production management research. What is striking is that across the three issues of Volume 16 (March, June, September) many of these submissions coalesce around the theme of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its deepening role in industrial systems. Within the March and June issues, for example, we see manuscripts focused on machine-learning-driven scheduling in smart manufacturing, human-resource and machine-integration in Industry 4.0 settings, and cybersecurity and IoT for power, agro-supply-chain and manufacturing infrastructures. The September issue then brings several studies directly addressing AI in production: a self-assessment model for digital retrofitting of legacy manufacturing systems; federated-learning approaches for predictive maintenance; reinforcement-learning plus digital twin frameworks for energy-efficient production scheduling.