MINI-WORKSHOP

e-Manufacturing and e-Science: Application Perspectives’

E-manufacturing is becoming the catalyst and prime mover for the most radical changes in manufacturing since the industrial revolution. It will impose real time transparency on all manner of manufacturing operations/transactions such as:

• Reducing barriers to entry;
• Empowering customers;
• Reinforcing the need for manufacturers providing commodity products to differentiate themselves;
• Enhancing engineering innovation and complex problems solving;
• Enabling manufacturing companies being agile and responsive throughout the product life cycle.

E-manufacturing is a part of e-science activity particularly from the engineering application point of view, including e-automation, e-instrumentation, e-supply chains and e-engineering, etc. E-manufacturing is opening up opportunities for data intensive activities such as on-line monitoring and diagnostics of machine tools conditions and knowledge intensive processes including new product development, complex systems modelling and simulation, and real time decision-making supports and complex problems solving, etc. Extended networks of engineers, working together using common product data models across time zones are technically feasible and many larger manufacturers are embracing this opportunity for reducing product lead time and increasing the exploitation and sharing of design and manufacturing expertise, as well as support for engineering innovation and complex problems solving.

The proposed mini-workshop aims to provide a forum to explore and debate the application perspectives of e-Manufacturing and e-Science with particular reference to complex engineering problems solving through a number of application systems developed by the presentation authors based on their own front-end research and first-hand engineering practices.

The invited presenters and their presentation titles are:

• Professor Kai Cheng and Dr Richard Bateman, Brunel University

  e-Manufacturing: characteristics, applications and potentials

• Dr Janet Efstathiou, Oxford University

  Theoretical and practical insights on the complexity of running an e-responsive manufacturing facility