by Conference Chairman n1 It is my pleasure to introduce this volume of Proceedings for the 33 MATADOR Conference. The Proceedings include 83 refereed papers submitted from 19 countries on 4 continents. 00 The spread of papers in this volume reflects four developments since the 32 MATADOR Conference in 1997: (i) the power of information technology to integrate the management and control of manufacturing systems; (ii) international manufacturing enterprises; (iii) the use of computers to integrate different aspects of manufacturing technology; and, (iv) new manufacturing technologies. New...