The meetings of the Scientific Technical Committee O were held on 16th February 2017 in Paris (65 members, 21 research affiliates, 29 guests), and on 25th August 2017 in Lugano (60 members, 13 research affiliates, 20 guests).

The major activities of STC O were the following:

Manufacturing Systems Conferences

Proposal was approved to have:
• The 53rd CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems (CMS) on July 6-9, 2020 (tentative), in Chicago, USA. The conference will be organized by the Northwestern University and be co-located with IFSA (International Flexible Automation Conference co-sponsored by ASME, IEEE and JSME). Conference co-chairmen: J. Cao and R. Gao.

Keynote Papers

At the Winter Meeting, it was approved that the
• 2019 keynote paper will be Dynamic global production networks coordinated by G. Lanza, co-authored by K. Ferdows, S. Kara, D. Mourtzis, G. Schuh, J. Váncza, L. Wang, H.-P. Wiendahl.

Proposals for future STC O keynote papers were presented as follows:
• 2020: Big data analytics and utilization in future smart factories coordinated by R.X. Gao, co-authored by L. Wang, R. Teti et al.
• 2021: Formalisms, formal techniques and formal theories in manufacturing systems coordinated by G.D. Putnik and co-authored by P. Butala, R. Sousa, V. Shah.

Paper Presentations and Technical Reports

During the STC O paper session at the General Assembly in Lugano, one keynote paper (by E. Abele) and 16 session papers were presented and discussed.
At the two STC O Meetings in 2017, a total of 13 technical presentations (6 in February, and 7 in August) were delivered and discussed. Most of the technical talks were organized around special topics such as robustness and cooperation. In August, an invited talk was also delivered (K. Ferdows).

Support of Collaborative Working Groups

• In February, support of the Collaborative Working Group on Urban Factories was confirmed. The CWG will be hosted by STC O.
• In August, STC O’s support for a new CWG on Additive Manufacturing was provided.

Election of STC O officers

There were no elections in 2017.