Striking a balance between state-of-the-art research and practical applications, this book provides a forum for contributions that cover the main research challenges in the cyclic modeling, development, and validation of concurrently acting distributed production systems: systems that employ multi- assortment production in large quantities, are characterized by gradual changes in their product mix, and exclusively manufacture products in a cyclic manner. Similar issues also arise in computer systems, e.g., embedded systems. Cyclic optimization problems that occur in them are unique and under- researched, but are attracting new interest primarily due to their great practical importance and the difficulty involved in obtaining efficient algorithms for solving specific