Offers detailed case studies on how various industries have learned how to best allocate their resources - technical, human, and financial - for enhancing productivity. It includes efforts to improve resource utilization from around the world. Case studies cover topics ranging from distributed virtual manufacturing enterprises to integrating green technology in a cost-effective manner to materials and energy savings.

It explores how energy-efficient smart materials and structures hold tremendous potential for realizing cost savings and improving energy use in the modern industrial workplace. It also shows how industrial engineers have developed a variety of analytical and computer-based tools and technologies for planning, forecasting, and schedul-ing resources including time, labor, and more recently, energy.