From 18th to 20th September, 1978, about forty scientists and practitioners from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany joined in an international symposium entitled "Design and Implementation of Computer-based Information Systems" . This symposium was initiated by the invitation of the BIFOA (Betriebswirtschaft- liches Institut fur Organisation und Automation an der Universitiit zu Koln) as a part of the institute's research project IMPLAN (Development of Tools for the IMPLemen- tation of Computer-based PLANning Systems). This book includes the opening address, the papers presented at the symposium -revised by the authors after presentation-the chairmen's summaries of the various working group sessions, and an edited version of the concluding"Blue- print for Research on Implementation". Xl Acknowledgements The symposium was made possible by a federal grant from the Bundesminister fur Forschung und Technologie (BMIT), Bonn, reptesented by the Gesellschaftfur Mathe- matik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD), St. Augustin, who sponsored the whole IMPLAN research project and the symposium.We are extremely appreciative of their valuable cooperation and support; in this respect our special thanks go to Mrs. Katharina Gregor and Dr. J urgen Marock of the G MD. Our sincere thanks and appreciation are due to the authors for the many hours of work, for their contributions and for preparing and revising them after the symposium. We appreciate the valuable help of the chairmen for conducting the working sessions and preparing summaries of the sessions.
