The road ahead: Understanding challenges and grasping opportunities in Industrial and Systems Engineering

Undoubtedly, Industrial and Systems engineers live challenging times: From the shift of paradigms in manufacturing, transportation and logistics, to the rapid advances in information technologies and communications, or from the need of real-time decisions to the ever decreasing life cycle of products and services -- just to mention a few--, nowadays´ industrial environment poses a number of challenges that can be hardly addressed with the tools and methodologies employed in the past. At the same time, exciting opportunities emerge from these advances, which may pave the way for a brilliant future in the field of Industrial and Systems Engineering.