Professor Jianjun Shi is the Carolyn J. Stewart Chair Professor at H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the Georgia Tech in 2008 he was the G. Lawton and Louise G. Johnson Chair Professor of Engineering, Professor of Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, and Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He got his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering at the Beijing Institute of Technology in 1984 and 1987 respectively. In 1992 he got his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests focus on system informatics and control for the design and operational improvements of manufacturing and service systems.

Professor Shi is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineering (IIE), a Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME), a Fellow of Institute of Operations Research and the Management Science (INFORMS), Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), and also a member of ASA. In addition, he has received the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award (2011), Forging Achievement Award from Forging Industry Educational and Research Foundation (2007), Monroe-Brown Foundation Research Excellence Award at the University of Michigan (2007), Excellence in Service Awards from IIE Transactions (2002, 2003).

Gregory H. Watson is a Fellow of IIE and the past-Senior Vice President, International on the Board of Trustees. Previously, he has served on the Board of Directors of the IIE Quality & Reliability Engineering Division. He is also past-Chairman and Academician in the International Academy for Quality where he was elected an Honorary Member in 2012. He is also past-President and Fellow of the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Mr. Watson is a registered European Engineer (EUIng) in both systems and industrial engineering, holds advanced degrees in engineering, law and management, and is completing his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering at Oklahoma State University to prepare for a retirement career in education. Mr. Watson is President of Business Excellence Solutions, Ltd., a Finland-based management consulting company and has previously held executive positions with Xerox Corporation, Compaq Computer Corporation and the Hewlett-Packard Company. He is the author of ten books. Strategic Benchmarking (John Wiley, 1993) was chosen by Fortune Magazine as a Book-of-the-Month selection and named by Library Journal as one of the 12 best business books of 1993. Among the awards he has received, in 2009 Mr. Watson became the first non-Japanese recipient of the Deming Medal (Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers). He has received over thirty major awards including the ASQ Distinguished Service Medal, the Founders Medal (International Academy for Quality), the C. Jackson Grayson Medal (American Productivity & Quality Center), the Georges Borel Medal (European Organization for Quality), the Harrington-Ishikawa Medal (Asia-Pacific Quality Organization), the Magnolia Quality Contribution Award (twice) (City of Shanghai) and the Gold Medal of the Finnish Society for Quality.

Professor Ben Wang is the Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. Chair in Manufacturing Systems in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. In addition to his role on the ISyE and MSE faculty, Dr. Wang serves as Executive Director of Georgia Tech Manufacturing Research Institute (formerly the Manufacturing Research Center). Dr. Wang earned his bachelor's in industrial engineering from Tunghai University in Taiwan, and his master's and Ph.D. degrees, both in industrial engineering, from the Pennsylvania State University. His primary research interest is in applying emerging technologies to improve manufacturing competitiveness and assessing the policy implications of these technologies.

Professor Wang is a member of the National Materials and Manufacturing Board, National Research Council of the U.S. National Academies. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering. In addition to authoring or co-authoring more than 220 refereed journal papers and 150 conference articles, he is a co-author of three books: Computer-Aided Manufacturing (Prentice-Hall, 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, and 3rd Edition), Computer-Aided Process Planning (Elsevier Science Publishers), and Computer Aided Manufacturing PC Application Software (Delmar Publishers). He has a portfolio of 25 issued or applied-for patents.