Special Issue: Research Methodology

Studies on the application of AI techniques to engineering design, analysis, and manufacturing (AI EDAM) problems have been expanding steadily over the past decade. These studies have led to the founding of many new journals and the initiation of series of conferences. If all these research efforts were successful, some of us might have been unemployed but living happily off the royalties from our successful research products that were deployed in practice. This, however, is not the case. Usually, research projects advance marginally toward their stated goal. Many research paths are fruitless and waste resources, but the stories of these lessons remain untold. Undoubtedly, those who encounter an impasse in their research learn from it. Even in published reports, rarely are the assumptions underlying studies, the methods used to conduct them, the interpretation of the results, and their relation to intermediate failures or the partial attainment of research objectives elucidated or reflected upon.