Collaborative Product Design and Manufacturing Methodologies and Applications

W. D. Li obtained his PhD degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore in January 2002. He taught at Xidian University (China) as a lecturer from 1995-1998. From 2001 - June 2005, he was a research scientist at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology. From July 2005, he has worked at the IMRC (Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre) at the University of Bath, UK as a Research Fellow. His research interests include collaborative product design and manufacturing, application of intelligent technologies in product design and manufacturing. CAD/CAPP/CAM, 3D geometric and feature-based modelling and applications, and design methodologies. In these areas, he led various research and industrial projects as principle investigator or co-principle investigator. He has published more than 30 research papers in international journals and presented them at conferences. He is an invited reviewer for a number of international journals in manufacturing. He won the 2002 Norman A. Dudley Award for the best paper published in the International Journal of Product Research together with Dr. S. K. Ong and Professor A. Y. C. Nee. His co-authored monograph specializing in concurrent and collaborative engineering is to be published by World Scientific in 2005. S. K. Ong has been an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore since 1996 which is also where she obtained her PhD in the same year. Her research interests are intelligent and distributed manufacturing systems, computer-aided set-up planning, life cycle engineering, environment impact assessment, and more recently, virtual and augmented reality applications in manufacturing. She has published two books and over 80 international refereed journal and conference papers. She was the recipient together with Dr. W. D. Li and Professor A. Y. C. Nee of the Norman A. Dudley Award in 2002 for the best paper published in the International Journal of Product Research. In November 2003, she was selected to receive the 2004 M. Eugene Merchant Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. She was also a recipient of the 2004 Singapore Youth Award for the Science and Technology Category. She has served on several international conference committees, is an invited reviewer of many journals in manufacturing and is an assistant editor of a book series on Manufacturing Systems and Technology published by World Scientific. Andrew Y. C. Nee has been a professor of manufacturing engineering in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) since 1989. He is currently the Director of the Office of Research at the NUS. He received his PhD and DEng from UMIST in 1973 and 2002 respectively. His research interests are computer applications for tool, die, fixture design and planning; intelligent and distributed manufacturing systems; and, virtual and augmented reality applications in manufacturing. He has published 6 books and over 450 papers in refereed journals and conference presentations. He currently holds regional editorship, department editorship, associate editorship and is a member of the editorial boards of 16 international journals in the field of manufacturing engineering. He became an active member of CIRP and an elected Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers both in 1990. Chris McMahon is Professor of Engineering Design in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath, UK where he is an active teacher and researcher in engineering design and manufacture. He is also Director of the Bath Engineering Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (IMRC), a centre of excellence for research in design and manufacture funded by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and comprising some 35 researchers working in a variety of research topics in design technologies, design information and knowledge management and manufacturing processes and systems. Chris's research interests include computer-aided design, engineering information management, risk and uncertainty in design, design process improvement, design for remanufacturing and design for fatigue. Chris first worked as an engineer in the railway and automotive industries, then in his academic career has led a number of research projects with the automotive and aerospace industries; he has written a leading textbook on CAD/CAM and published over 150 articles on various aspects of engineering design.