Advanced Design and Manufacture to Gain a Competitive Edge ─ New Manufacturing Techniques and Their Role in Improving Enterprise Performance

The globalization of manufacturing industries leads to a thirst for rapid advancements in technological development and expertise in advanced design and manufacturing. Both industry and academia have an urgent need to equip themselves of the latest knowledge and trends relating to design and manufacture. "Advanced Design and Manufacture 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 organizations 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.