The conference was a gathering and exchange on the latest advancements, innovations, and emerging challenges in industrial quality and production process optimization. The event was attended by over 80 students, researchers, and industry representatives from 13 different countries and spanned four days, featuring around 60 technical presentations divided into 17 sessions.

On behalf of the two conference Chairs, Bianca Maria Colosimo (Politecnico di Milano) and Biagio Palumbo (Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II), the organizing committee chaired by Ran Jin (Virginia Tech), Marco Grasso (Politecnico di Milano), and Jian Liu (University of Arizona), and the members of the Program Committee, we would like to thank everyone who contributed to ICQSR2024 with numerous high-quality and scientifically innovative presentations, and for fostering the debate on the many topics addressed during the conference.

The proceedings were opened by four keynote speeches from internationally renowned experts: Prof. Julie Swann, Department Head and A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor of the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State University; Prof. Alain Bensoussan, Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair and Director of the International Center for Decision and Risk Analysis at the University of Texas at Dallas; Prof. Hui Szu Ng, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management at the National University of Singapore (NUS); and Prof. Yu Ding, Anderson-Interface Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

A highly appreciated element of the conference was the three panel sessions that stimulated discussion and the exchange of ideas on highly relevant and current topics:

• Leader Forum – International Collaboration for Future QSR, moderated by Jian Liu (University of Arizona) and Yisha Xiang (University of Houston), with participation from Suk Joo Bae (Hanyang University), Russell Barton (Penn State University), Biagio Palumbo (University of Naples Federico II), Julie Swann (NC State University), Fugee Tsung (HKUST School of Engineering), Houmin Yan (The City University of Hong Kong).
• New Era in AI for QSR, moderated by Bianca Maria Colosimo (Politecnico di Milano), with participation from Irad Ben-Gal (Tel Aviv University), Luca Dedè (Politecnico di Milano), Romano Iazurlo (Leonardo), Ran Jin (Virginia Tech), Mathilde Mougeot (ENSIIE & ENS Paris-Saclay), Kamran Paynabar (Georgia Tech), Fugee Tsung (HKUST School of Engineering).
• QSR in Industry 5.0, moderated by Marco Grasso (Politecnico di Milano), with participation from Bianca Maria Colosimo (Politecnico di Milano), Qiang Huang (University of Southern California), Yuan Luo (Institute of AI in Medicine, Northwestern University), Elisa Negri (Politecnico di Milano | MICS Made in Italy Circolare e Sostenibile), Shiyu Zhou (University of Wisconsin-Madison).

The conference also hosted the Best Paper Award competition, which saw the participation of 22 international research groups. The award was given to a joint work by Texas A&M University, Rice University, and University of Houston, titled “CODA: Temporal Domain Generalization via Concept Drift Simulator,” authored by Chia-Yuan Chang, Yu-Neng Chuang, Zhimeng Jiang, Kwei-Herng Lai, Anxiao Jiang, Na Zou.

The success of the event was made possible thanks to the support of academic and industrial sponsors - Camozzi Group, Purdue University (School of Industrial Engineering), and Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Department of Industrial Engineering and SFERe – Statistics for Engineering Research) – and the individual donation from Prof. Russell Barton, Smeal College of Business at Penn State University.

An important contribution to the conference was also made by MICS – Made in Italy Circolare e Sostenibile (a partnership between universities, research centers, and companies), with the participation of Elisa Negri (Scientific Coordinator) and Romano Iazurlo (Leonardo), and by ENBIS – European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics, whose President, Biagio Palumbo, signed a memorandum of understanding with QSR to consolidate the collaboration between the two scientific communities.

The next edition of the ICQSR conference will be held in 2025 in Singapore.

Link to the site: https://www.icqsr24.polimi.it