The aim of the 9th annual Industrial Simulation Conference (ISC'2011, the premier industrial simulation conference in Europe, is to give a complete overview of this year's industrial simulation related research and to provide an annual status report on present day industrial simulation research within the European Community and the rest of the world in line with European industrial research projects.

With the integration of artificial intelligence, agents and other modelling techniques, simulation has become an effective and appropriate decision support tool in industry. The exchange of techniques and ideas among universities and industry, which support the integration of simulation in the everyday workplace, is the basic premise at the heart of ISC'2011 conference. The ISC'2011 conference consists of four major parts; the first part concerns itself with discrete event simulation methodology, the second and biggest part with industrial simulation applications, a third one with industrial themed workshops, and last but not least the fourth part, namely the poster sessions for students. The whole is then illustrated by an exhibition.

The ISC also focuses on simulation applications for the factory of the future (e.g. transformable factories, networked factories, learning factories, digital factories) depending on different drivers such as high performance, high customisation, environmental friendliness, high efficiency of resources, human potential and knowledge creation as set out by the EU directories. A second focus for ISC'2011 is on new robotics applications.