First published in 1998, this deeply engaging volume describes the ‘great transformation’ of our time. While transformation, it is definitely not a transition to the market economy, civil society and democratic rule. Instead, this book maps the growth of the economic jungle, clan society and a corrupted, criminalised state. Capitalists but no capitalism. Watching Warsaw, Prague and Budapest, one should not forget about Zaporizhzhya. After this book, one cannot.

This book forms an excellent basis for the development of intelligent manufacturing system for Industry 4.0, digital and distributed manufacturing, and factories for future. This book of new developments and advancement in intelligent control and optimization system for production engineering serves as a good companion to scholars, manufacturing companies, and RTO to improve the efficiency of production systems.

This book discusses the papers presented at Conference ISPEM 2023 which was organized by Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Liverpool John Moores University, and University of Minho. The conference gave an opportunity to exchange experiences in intelligent systems and tools in production, and maintenance, especially its practical application.