EDITORIAL

 

Note from the editor

 

 

"Logistics is the lifeblood of society."

- Unknown

2023 has come to an end. In the previous two years' final editions of the journal, I commented on the disruptions of COVID and how our discipline had to adjust and adapt to make success of the journal. 2023 brought new challenges. Our electricity supply is still intermittent and causing severe damage to our economy. Severe backlogs in our harbours and rail networks are hampering the logistical flow in the country. But, with these challenges come new opportunities, and Industrial Engineers can again contribute to finding the solutions!

As mentioned at the end of 2017, it is now customary to evaluate how the journal is performing. Scopus (www.scopus.com) measures impact with a "CiteScore" and the graph in Figure 1 (extracted from Scopus on 14 December 2023) shows the trend over the last five years. The CiteScore for a year is calculated as the Citation Count for the year divided by the number of documents published in the previous three years. The Citescore for 2020 was 1.2 (measured May 2021), and the Citescore for 2022 is slightly higher at 1.4. Our ranking concerning the Percentile in the category is currently stable as a Q3 journal.

 

 

Another important source for journal standing is Scimago Journal and Country Rank (www.scimagojr.com) where this journal is also listed as a Q3 journal in the "Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering" subject area. It is very encouraging to observe how the number of citations has grown (Figure 2).

 

 

Due to timing constraints, we did not include the top-rated papers from the RAPDASA conference in the 3^rd edition of the year. This edition therefore contains the top 4 rated papers from the RAPDASA conference (30 October to 2 November).

This edition has a total of 12 articles, with 11 from authors with South African connections and the balance from international authors.

If you have suggestions on how we can take this journal forward, please let me know.

Corne Schutte

Editor