The Journal of Manufacturing Systems publishes state-of-the-art fundamental and applied research in manufacturing at systems level. Manufacturing systems are comprised of products, equipment, people, information, control and support functions for the economical and competitive development, production, delivery and total lifecycle of products to satisfy market and societal needs.

The aim of the Journal of Manufacturing Systems is to publish archival scholarly literature with the goal of advancing the state of the art in manufacturing systems and encouraging innovation in developing efficient, robust and sustainable manufacturing systems. Pertinent to the Journal is research that will impact emerging manufacturing systems from the equipment level to the extended enterprise. Challenges are addressed within and across various scales including nano, micro and macro-scale manufacturing, as well as within and across broad sectors including aerospace, automotive, energy and medical device manufacturing.

The scope of the Journal of Manufacturing Systems includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:

    Factory and production network design, process planning, assembly planning, scheduling;
    Smart sensor networks, real-time monitoring, distributed system control;
    Human-machine interaction, human-robot collaborative assembly, operator ergonomics;
    Multi-physics modelling, simulation and optimisation, virtual and augmented reality in manufacturing;
    Diagnosis and prognosis, predictive maintenance, lifecycle analysis, product-service systems;
    Design and operation for sustainability, energy efficiency in production and logistics;
    Global and regional production networks, material handling, logistics;
    Mass customisation and personalisation, complexity management;
    Cyber-physical production systems, big data analytics and machine learning, industrial Internet;
    Systems issues related to additive and subtractive manufacturing, micro-electromechanical systems.

Papers addressing related emerging topics are encouraged, and special-topic issues on emerging topics will be considered.
The Journal of Manufacturing Systems is an official journal of Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), in cooperation with the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of SME (NAMRI/SME).

Special Issue on Innovative Approaches towards Circular Factories
Submission Date: 2026-04-30

Circular production provides a solution to decouple resource consumption from economic growth. Yet, manufacturing companies face challenges in implementing these approaches at scale, as they are often constrained to small-series production with manual processes in remanufacturing. Circular factories aim to achieve value creation by combining linear and circular production on an industrial scale, combining reprocessing of used products with product upgrades and cross-generational product development. This Special Issue explores challenges and interdisciplinary solutions in production technology, product development, materials technology, ergonomics, robotics, computer science and knowledge modeling. Together, these approaches pave the way for economically viable, large-scale circular production in high-wage countries.

Earth Overshoot Day, the date set every year to mark the point at which human resource consumption exceeds the Earth's capacity to regenerate, has shifted dramatically from December 30 in 1970 to July 28 in 2022. This trend underlines the urgency of the transformation of industrial production systems to mitigate excessive resource depletion. By decoupling resource consumption from production output and promoting restorative and regenerative industrial practices, the circular economy offers a promising solution. Successful implementations of circular economy principles can be observed, for example, in the automotive industry, where companies have established remanufacturing plants to reprocess used vehicle components such as starters, reducing material waste and energy consumption. However, achieving this transformation at scale for various industrial sectors will require extensive research and innovation.

This special issue explores innovative approaches towards the circular factory, an industrial paradigm that integrates linear and circular production to maximize value retention. The focus is on enabling a perpetual innovative product lifecycle in which used products are efficiently returned to the market with the same or better performance or even upgraded to the current product generation. The concept of the circular factory is based on the seamless integration of the design of the product and the circular production system (Circular Product-Production-CoDesign), using adaptable and autonomous production resources to cope with the uncertainties associated with used product states.

We invite contributions that address key challenges and advancements in the transition toward circular factories. Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

1. Integrated Circular and Linear Production

    Methods for achieving circular production at scale
    Design principles for products and production systems that support linear and circular production

2. Circular Product-Production-CoDesign

    Methodologies for designing products optimized for circular production
    Frameworks for integrating product (lifecycle) data into production process planning

3. Multi-Sensory Perception and Adaptive Reprocessing

    AI-driven sensory systems for analyzing uncertain product conditions
    Sensor fusion and machine learning for real-time process adaptation in reprocessing processes
    Human-in-the-loop approaches for knowledge integration in circular production (e.g. learning by observation of human disassembly)

4. Changeable Production Systems

    Dynamic scheduling and order planning in uncertain production environments
    Autonomous and self-learning robotic systems for disassembly and assembly processes
    Knowledge technologies for handling uncertainty in circular production

5. Economic and Regulatory Perspectives

    Business models for circular production at industrial scale
    Cost-benefit analyses of circular versus linear production

Guest editors:

Gisela Lanza
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

Barbara Deml
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

Sven Matthiesen
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

Manuscript submission information:

Manuscript submission open date: 1 November 2025
Manuscript submission deadline: 30 April 2026

You are invited to submit your manuscript at any time before the submission deadline. For any inquiries about the appropriateness of contribution topics, please contact Professor Gisela Lanza via Gisela.Lanza@kit.edu.

Please refer to the Guide for Authors to prepare your manuscript, and select the article type of “VSI: Towards Circular Factories” when submitting your manuscript online at the journal’s submission platform Editorial Manager®. Both the Guide for Authors and the submission portal could also be found on the Journal Homepage.

Keywords:

Circular Factory; Circular Product-Production-CoDesign; Sustainable Production; Autonomous Circular Production Systems; Knowledge Technologies for Circular Economy; Multi-Sensory Perception in Circular Production; Learning from Human Observation