Production Research is foundational for advancing theories, methods, technologies and practices in manufacturing industries, production systems and related service industries. Over the last five decades, tremendous scientific and technical progresses have been made in all areas of production of goods and services, ranging from the birth of Computer-Aided tools (CAx, where x stands for Design, Manufacturing, Process Planning or Engineering), Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machines and industrial robotics in the 60s, then to Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMSs), Automated Guided-Vehicles (AGVs) and concept of unmanned factories in the 70s, to Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), quality management, value chains and lean management in the 80s, to mass customisation, distributed warehousing and networked organisations governed by integrated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages in the 90s, then to service-orientation (or ‘servitization’), global supply chains and interoperable and knowledge-based systems in the 2000s and, finally, to emerging smart, sensing and sustainable production systems today culminating with the concept of smart factories and Industry 4.0 since 2011, and the emerging cyber physical production. Within this framework, and not to forget significant advances made on materials, production and machining processes, numerous optimisation methods, new manufacturing paradigms, various systems engineering methods and organisational and management theories, Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) have played a crucial role in the progress of manufacturing and production systems. Therefore, advances on modern production systems are to a large extend bound to progresses in ICT domains. To celebrate the 55th anniversary of International Journal of Production Research, which has been a forefront witness and an active vector in the progress of production research since 1961, it has been decided to publish a series of special issues. The present one continues the series and concentrates on recent advances and new perspectives in the thematic field of Information Systems and Knowledge Management of the journal enlarged to ICTs and management methods, including performance evaluation, from an Industrial Engineering perspective. As far as information systems and knowledge management in particular and ICT in general are concerned, there are three major interrelated thrusts in production research to which they provide essential contributions. Namely, these are Industry 4.0, S^3 (Sensing, Smart and Sustainable) Enterprises and Cloud Manufacturing.