Global Design to Gain a Competitive Edge

Recent rapid globalisation of manufacturing industries leads to a drive and thirst for rapid advancements in technological development and expertise in the fields of advanced design and manufacturing, especially at their interfaces. This development results in many economical benefits to and improvement of quality of life for many people all over the world. Technically speaking, this rapid development also create many opportunities and challenges for both industrialists and academics, as the design requirements and constraints have completely changed in this global design and manufacture environment. Consequently the way to design, manufacture and realise products have changed as well. The days of designing for a local market and using local suppliers in manufacturing have gone, if enterprises aim to maintain their competitiveness and global expansion leading to further success. In this global context and scenario, both industry and the academia have an urgent need to equip themselves with the latest knowledge, technology and methods developed for engineering design and manufacture. To address this shift in engineering design and manufacture, supported by the European Commission under the Asia Link Programme with a project title FASTAHEAD (A Framework Approach to Strengthening Asian Higher Education in Advanced Design and Manufacture), three key project partners, namely the University of Strathclyde of the United Kingdom, Northwestern Polytechncial University of China, and the Troyes University of Technology of France organised a third international conference.

The globalisation of manufacturing industries leads to a thirst for rapid advancements in technological development and expertise in the fields of advanced design and manufacturing. In this scenario, both industry and academia have an urgent need to equip themselves of the latest knowledge and trends relating to design and manufacture.

Global Design to Gain a Competitive Edge collects together papers from the 2008 International Conference on Advanced Design and Manufacture (ICADAM). This conference solicits both cutting edge fundamental research and recent industrial application papers, with a goal towards bringing together from all over the world design and manufacture practitioners from academia, government organisations and industry. Recent advancements, emerging trends and new challenges in the fields of design and manufacturing are covered, with a particular focus on the understanding of the impact of distributed team-based design and manufacture on research and industrial practices for global companies.

The proceedings of ICADAM 2008 is divided into two volumes: Global Design to Gain a Competitive Edge: An Holistic and Collaborative Design Approach based on Computational Tools and Advanced Design and Manufacture to Gain a Competitive Edge: New Manufacturing Techniques and their Role in Improving Enterprise Performance.