Good morning! It’s so nice to see you all here in Kanazawa. First of all, I would like to thank our host Kanazawa University the great work they did organizing this event. I would like to thank Prof. Mitsuo Gen and Prof. Hidetaka Nambo in particular for their contributions to this conference. Also, I would like to give a big welcome to President of Kanazawa University Prof. Koetsu Yamazaki, Dean of Graduate School of Kanazawa Prof. Yoshihiko Uesugi, and Former Chief Director of Japan-China Friendship Association of Ishikawa Prefecture Mr. Katsumi Koga. Many thanks to our distinguished guests for attending this conference!

Over the past ten years, we tried very hard to hold conferences in Asia, America, and Europe in order to promote state-of-the-art research in the field of MSEM. More and more scholars are now attending the conference and presenting their compelling work in this field. Thanks to their hard work, we all get the opportunity to work together, learn, and share ideas which can contribute to the development of MSEM.

Although many achievements have been recognized, new developments and challenges never stop. For example, the rapid development of information technology allows companies to store every single bit of information about production, inventory, service, and consumer activities. The era of “Big Data” calls for the better integration of optimization, statistics and data analysis. These changes provide tremendous opportunities for us to solve new MSEM problems. New methodologies and technologies are needed for addressing the new challenges in MSEM.

This year we invite eight keynote speakers to give us interesting talks in the following two days, including Prof. Asaf Hajiyev, Prof. Benjamin Lev, Prof. Gheorghe Duca, Prof. Hiroshi Katayama, Prof. Gursel A. Suer, Prof. S. Ejaz Ahmed, Prof. Young Jae Jang and Prof. V. Cruz Machado. Welcome all of you, we all look forward to your great presentations. Also welcome our guests from Portugal, Japan, Spain, Azerbaijan, and elsewhere in the world. Thanks for your efforts and support that make our conference a success. We hope you enjoy a great weekend in Kanazawa. There are beautiful natural areas, delicious food, and historical buildings. I was told that I should take the opportunity to try some traditional Japanese food here. We hope Prof. Mitsuo Gen will guide us to try some local specialties.

After all, this conference will be a feast of academic and cultural interactions in Kanazawa. It will be an event of friendship and cooperation. We aim to foster more research collaboration in a relaxed atmosphere, and I do hope you will all enjoy it! Thank you again for joining us and making it such a success! I wish you have a great stay in Kanazawa.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Jiuping Xu

General Chair

President of the International Society of Management Science and Engineering Management

Academician of International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry

July 29, 2017