F. Robert Jacobs is the Chase Faculty Fellow and Professor of Operations Management at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He received a B.S., MBA, and Ph.D. in Operations Management all from The Ohio State University. He has published 7 books and over 50 research articles on topics that include enterprise resource planning, inventory control, the design of manufacturing facilities, cellular manufacturing, and the scheduling of manufacturing operations. He is a fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute and past president and has received teaching honors such as MBA Teaching Award, Students Award for Teaching Excellence in International Business Issues, and Teaching Excellence in Operations Management. He has served on the Board of Directors of APICS, and now serves on the APICS E&R Foundation Board of Directors.

William L. Berry is Emeritus Professor at The Ohio State University's Max M. Fisher College of Business as the Richard Ross Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Operational Excellence. He has published four books and numerous articles in leading research journals in the manufacturing planning area. Prior to Ohio State he was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina, IMD, University of Iowa, Indiana University, and Purdue University. He was recognized for excellence in teaching at Ohio State, Iowa, and Indiana. He worked in manufacturing management at the General Electric Company and is a Fellow and past-president of Decision Sciences Institute. He has a B.S. from Purdue, an M.S. from the Virginia Tech, and a DBA from the Harvard Business School.

D. Clay Whybark is the Macon G. Patton Distinguished Professor of Operations, Technology and Innovation Management at Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina. His areas of expertise include international manufacturing and strategy. He has authored more than 300 papers and business cases, two of which won European POM Case of the Year Awards. He is founding director of the Global Manufacturing Research Group, received the Distinguished Service Award of the Decision Sciences Institute, of which he is a Fellow. He is a Fellow of the International Pan Pacific Business Association and past president of the International Society for Inventory Research. He received his B.S. from the University of Washington, MBA from Cornell, and Ph.D. from Stanford.

The late Thomas E. Vollmann (1937-2009) was Professor of Manufacturing Management at IMD in Lausanne Switzerland. His areas of expertise include manufacturing, performance measurement, supply chain management and enterprise transformation. He consulted numerous companies, lectured in executive programs worldwide, and taught at Indiana University, INSEAD, Boston University, the University of Rhode Island, and Dartmouth College. He received his B.A., MBA, and Ph.D. from UCLA. Vollmann's cases on Manufacturing and Supply Chain issues won The European Case Writing Competition award in '97, '98, and '99. He is the author of numerous books and articles in the US and Europe.