Engineering Special Features

A team of students from the University of Queensland (Australia) won the inaugural Airbus "Fly Your Ideas" challenge at the recent Paris-Le Bourget Air Show. The "COz" team won for its project into the use of the castor plant to develop the first ever single plant-based high-performance composite materials for aircraft cabin components. The goal is to reduce dependency on non-renewable sources and improve end-of-life disposal thus contributing to a reduction of aviation carbon footprint. They conducted a comprehensive feasibility analysis entailing fibre production and testing, demonstrating very encouraging mechanical and environmental properties.

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is a field of applied science that is concerned with the production, manipulation and use of materials at – or close to – the atomic and molecular levels. This book is an impressive work that provides a substantial and relatively in-depth coverage of a wide range of electronics packaging and assembly-related applications for nanotechnology.

The Sixth Annual RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition, produced by Robotic Trends, took place in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, April 15 and 16, 2009. More than 700 professionals representing more than a dozen countries around the globe attended this international business development event for the mobile robotics and intelligent systems industry.

Automobili Lamborghini has selected automotive coating specialist Zircotec to supply a high-performance thermal barrier for the lightweight Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce. The ceramic-based thermal coating is applied to the exhaust system and reduces the need for heat shields while allowing heat sensitive lightweight materials to be used in close proximity to the exhaust pipe. Zircotec's Thermohold technology also protects other heat sensitive components from damage.

A new project supported by Intelligent Energy Europe called SURFENERGY has recently commenced with the intention of helping the European printed circuit board (PCB) and surface finishing sectors to reduce their energy consumption. The strategic aims will support European policy objectives on energy efficiency and increasing competitiveness.

Nihal Sinnadurai reviews MicroTech 2009 which was held on March 2-3 at the elegant Edinburgh Conference Centre of Heriot-Watt University.

Our machines are exceeding human performance in more and more tasks (from guiding objects to assembling other machines) and some developments in machine intelligence are already being introduced into new manufacturing methods such as rapid-manufacture and the manufacture of composites. If they can be effectively introduced into micro-electromechanical machines (MEMS) devices and their manufacture, then machines can be made to merge with us more intimately and we should be able to combine our brain power with computer capacity to create a powerful artificial intelligence. It is difficult to see the boundaries to what may be possible then and some scientists are predicting a period when the pace of technological change will be so fast and far-reaching that our lives will be irreversibly altered.

Dr Jamal Khatib, Reader in Civil Engineering Materials, Construction and Infrastructure (COIN) at the School of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Wolverhampton, UK, gives us his expert review.

The economic crisis may serve for all kinds of comments in every industry, but it especially applies to the PCB industry in Europe. During the first 4 months of 2009, almost 1,800 jobs – or 9 per cent – have already been lost. The outlook at present is not promising, and from those companies that have survived the turn of the year, several are marked to go down – or have gone down already. And while in the past mainly smaller companies have not been able to carry on, now it has hit even large and very large manufacturers. So: who is going to survive? Michael Gasch, president of data4PCB, shares his strategy on how to pull through.

First Flavor and US Ink recently announced the debut of Taste-it Notes, a new kind of "sticky note" that newspaper publishers and printers can place on the front page of newspapers to engage readers in a never-before-offered taste sampling advertising experience. Taste-it Notes are created using First Flavor's Peel 'n Taste edible film technology and US Ink's innovative news ink capabilities to create an interactive ad that readers can use to literally smell and taste a flavoured food, beverage or other flavoured product. Each Taste-it Note provides readers with an easy-to-open, tamper evident foil pouch in a multi-layered sticky note format and brings taste sampling to a print newspaper's audience, leveraging the power of print advertising and delivering an interactive experience that is not possible with online, television or radio ads.

IDTechEx held its second Printed Electronics Europe conference and exhibition in Dresden, and one could quite see why. A perfect venue, the Maritim, on the banks of the river Elbe, all bathed in warm spring sunshine, and with the registration of some 700 delegates, the picture compared to its first conference at Churchill College Cambridge for about 100 people some 3 years ago could not have been more marked. The surging interest in printed electronics has driven the subject to the forefront of corporate consideration, and major players in the consumables market came together to discover what benefits printed electronics can bring.

Scientists in Switzerland and the USA have built the first on-chip microscope, which they claim will provide clinicians with a rugged and high-resolution instrument that can be carried around in a pocket. According to Changhuei Yang, assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology, the simple design means that tens or even hundreds of these microscopes can be built on a single chip and operate in parallel to speed up the imaging process at a cost per chip of around $10. This portable and cheap device is particularly appealing for third-world applications where it could be used in the field to analyse blood samples for malaria or check water supplies for pathogens. "We can build very cheap, iPod-sized, rugged microscopes that fit easily into a health worker's back pocket," said Yang. "We can potentially furnish each scientist or clinician with hundreds or thousands of microscopes. Implantable blood analysis devices could even be built to continuously monitor blood in vivo to screen for circulating tumour cells or white blood cell population ramps, which is indicative of infection."

This book, which belongs to the series of the Springer Handbooks, represents a useful desk reference volume that gives a comprehensive overview of robotics. It is divided into seven main parts which are are expanded in 64 chapters, written by the world's leading robotics researchers.

Researchers at the University of Bath, UK are to be part of a €3 million Europe-wide research collaboration to pioneer research into safer, more effective anti-bacterial plastics and coatings. The Bath team has developed a range of new compounds which have been shown to be highly effective against common hospital bacterial infections such as MRSA and are safer than existing anti-bacterials based on silver nanoparticles.They will develop these compounds so they can be cheaply and efficiently incorporated into a wide range of materials from medical devices, wound dressings, food packaging and even nappies.

A reusable space plane that can take-off from a conventional aircraft runway, carry over 12 tonnes into orbit and return to land on the same runway, could be less than a decade away thanks to engineers at Bristol University and a €1 million award by the European Space Agency. The project, led by Reaction Engines Limited, is part of a joint public and private multi-million pound research programme. The technology, developed by a European team of experts including academics from the University’s Department of Aerospace Engineering, is for the SABRE air-breathing rocket engine, which will power the "SKYLON" space plane. The SABRE is a unique hybrid engine that can "breathe in” air when in the atmosphere, like a jet engine, and become a rocket engine when in space.

Machine intelligence combines a wide variety of advanced technologies to give machines an ability to learn, adapt, make decisions and display new behaviours. This is achieved using technologies such as neural networks, expert systems, self-organizing maps, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms. These developments in machine intelligence are being introduced into rapid prototyping and rapid manufacture. At the click of a mouse or the flick of a switch – or potentially even the thought of a brain – you might have almost anything made to order. But, if the machine intelligence and ambient systems are so clever then what are people for?

Japan Airlines (JAL) recently became the first airline to conduct a demonstration flight using a sustainable biofuel primarily refined from the energy crop, camelina. It was also believed to be the first demo flight using a combination of three sustainable biofuel feedstocks, as well as the first one using Pratt & Whitney engines. The results of the flight are expected to conclusively confirm the second-generation biofuel's operational performance capabilities and potential commercial viability. Boeing Japan President, Nicole Piasecki said, "We are hopeful that within the next three to five years, commercial aircraft will begin flying revenue passenger flights using sustainable next-generation biofuels".

ASTM International, one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world, recently launched the "Year of the Professor" campaign. This multi-faceted academic outreach initiative is aimed at promoting the value of standards education at colleges and universities worldwide. As part of the initiative there will be an ASTM International Professor of the Year Award, rewarding a university-level educator for exemplary use of standards in their curriculum or classroom setting. ASTM international president James A. Thomas commented, "Today's college students are the world's future technical experts and leaders in their fields. Enhancing their classroom learning with a real-world curriculum in standards will give then a learning foundation they can draw on throughout their entire career".

The National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB) has determined that an aircraft accident in Sanford, Florida, in July 2007, which killed two in the plane and three on the ground, was caused by a series of poor decisions, both by corporate flight department management and by the pilots that flew the accident aircraft. Despite being aware of an unresolved issue involving the aircraft's electrical system, the flight department released the aircraft for flight and the two pilots accepted it. "This accident is especially tragic not only because lives were lost and people were grievously injured, but because it could have been so easily avoided", said NTSB acting chairman Mark V. Rosenker.

With a thin layer of ice on its canals, and a bicycle for each of its three-quarters of a million inhabitants, Amsterdam, the financial and cultural capital of The Netherlands, was the venue for the EIPC Winter Conference – a comprehensive programme of 22 presentations, remarkably well-attended, with 13 countries represented. Read on for an extensive review of the event by Pete Starkey.

Researchers in China have reported that discarded electronic hardware can be recycled into an additive that makes super-strong asphalt paving material for real highways. The scientists describe a new recycling method that quickly separates toxic metals from circuit boards, yielding a fine, metal-free powder. When mixed into asphalt in laboratory tests, the powder produced a stronger paving material less apt to soften at high temperatures.

Peter Starkey, editorial advisory board member, Circuit World, reviews the two-day seminar programme managed by SMART Group on behalf of the Electronics Knowledge Transfer Network, entitled "Technology breakthroughs – bending the design rules" which was held at the TechnologyWorld08 exhibition. Moderated by SMART Group technical director Bob Willis, the seminar included presentations from Joe Fjelstad of Verdant Electronics, Thomas Ahrens of Fraunhofer Institute, Craig Hillman of DfR Solutions, David Pedder of TWI and Markys Cain of NPL.

Website review of a number of websites dealing with Chinese robots and applications. Covers the Asian Robotics Society Union, Shanghai SIASUN Robot and Automation Co., Ltd, Shenyang Institute of Automation and the Research Center of Intelligent Robotics.

Humans have always looked at nature to find solutions for everyday problems and technical challenges, but why spend time studying nature today in our high tech era? The reason is that nature has fostered an enormous amount of very sophisticated and brilliant solutions – solutions that have been optimized and fine-tuned through million of years of evolution. Biomimetics help us copy principles and mechanisms that have worked in nature for many years, creating a much larger solution palette to select from, resulting in improved products with regard to various parameters such as functionality, durability, sustainability, etc.

Being readily available, hydrogen peroxide is widely used by terrorists to manufacture improvized explosives. Techniques that can rapidly detect trace levels of hydrogen peroxide are therefore of interest to the security services, first responders, and forensic teams. Now, a team of chemists and physicists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), has developed a hydrogen peroxide sensor based on organometallic compounds termed metal phthalocyanines. In addition to detecting explosives, the UCSD team believe that the sensor could have industrial applications, for example inexpensively monitoring hydrogen peroxide vapours arising from bleached pulp to which workers may be exposed.

New research compiled by the Engineering and Technology Board reveals a 7 per cent increase in applications to engineering and technology university courses over the past five years. This increase is encouraging for the engineering sector when considered in the context of increasing competition from the larger number of degree choices now available. The research, entitled "The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth", also provides testimony to the continuing international appeal of UK engineering and technology courses, with 25 per cent of applicants hailing from non-EU countries. The report also reveals an 18 per cent decrease in students applying to mathematical and computer sciences. It should be noted however, that this apparent decline is largely due to a fall in computer sciences applicants and actually masks a 61 per cent rise in applicants to maths.

Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) may reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatments, say University of Cincinnati scientists. The research study, led by UC's Nira Ben-Jonathan, PhD, says that BPA – a man-made chemical found in a number of plastic products, including drinking bottles and the lining of food cans – actually induces a group of proteins that protect cancer cells from the toxic effects of chemotherapy. The findings are reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Martin Goosey and Darren Cadman comprehensively review the 2nd Electronics System Integration Technology Conference, held in September 2008, at the University of Greenwich, London. With contributions from 32 countries, 252 papers, 8 poster sessions and 384 delegates, it certainly lived up to its description as "the foremost micro and nanoelectronics, photonics and MEMS technology conference and exhibition of 2008".

The 2008 Engelberger Robotics Award, the industry's highest honour, was presented to two industry veterans at the 39th International Symposium on Robotics in Seoul, Korea on October 16 2008. Dr Jin Oh Kim of South Korea's Kwangwoon University received the Award for Leadership, honouring his accomplishments during more than two decades in robotics, while Dr Hendrik van Brussel of Belgium's Katholieke Universiteit Leuven received the Engelberger Award for Education. "This year's winners are outstanding role models for everyone who wishes to pursue robotics as a career," said Jeffrey A. Burnstein, executive vice president, Robotic Industries Association, the North American Trade Group that sponsors the award programme.

Climate change is – literally – a hot topic at present, prompted by a mixture of scientific evaluation, political debate and vast media attention. The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge is an impressive step forward in presenting the facts about climate change in an inventive and novel way. Here Matthew Wade gives us a lively and informative overview of this important book.

This is the 10th and latest edition of the ASTM Dictionary of Engineering Science & Technology. Massively updated and much improved, it includes over 7,000 new terms bringing the total up to a remarkable 29,000 definitions. Here, Andrea Ghiotti gives us his review of the book.

Robots are becoming smarter with more integrated capabilities such as vision and autonomous part picking from random bin locations. They are becoming more economical, faster and more application specific. Robot system integrators are creating more efficient solutions for customers to consider. This paper reviews the International Manufacturing Technology Show held in Chicago, with emphasis on innovative robot applications on display. It is of value to users who investigated robot solutions in the past and found they did not meet applications requirements and who may need to revisit robotics.

Global aerospace businesses are wasting as much as $20m every year through the use of out-dated design techniques in the development and manufacture of fibre-optic avionics systems, according to St Asaph-based aerospace design technology pioneers, Trace Technologies. According to the company, design engineers throughout the aerospace industry are still designing optical fibre harnesses using outmoded, manual "trial & error" techniques, which are costly in terms of both time and wasted materials.

At the end of the 1990s, the leading strategy consultancy McKinsey & Co declared the opening of a new area of conflict in the business world, the now ubiquitous "war for talent". According to their assessment, based on a year long study of companies around the globe, success over the next two decades would no longer be based on capital, strategy or R&D, but on an organization's ability to identify, recruit, develop and retain the best people. In their view, capital would become widely available for good ideas, clever strategies would become increasingly easy to copy and new products and services would be quickly outmoded by the lightning speed of the ideas pipeline. In such a business environment, access to smart, sophisticated business people with technical literacy, operational agility and global awareness would therefore provide the only genuine competitive advantage. So, how has this putative war had relevance to the microelectronics arena so far and how is it likely to have an impact on it in the immediate future?

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) may have failed, as yet, to reach its full potential in the retail environment, but that is no reason to write off the technology. With growing pressure in both the private and public sector for improved asset management and accountability, RFID has an important role to play, argues Karen Conneely, Group Commercial Manager of Real Asset Management.

Grasping or gripping of parts is one of the challenges in automated assembly and material handling. This book is a comprehensive, up-to-date treatment of robotic grippers. Robot Grippers includes both traditional methods and many more recent developments, including contactless gripping. The application areas are also wide, including mechanical part handling, flexible part handling, textile, optoelectronics, and so on.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) stakeholders around the world are being urged to participate in the European Commission-funded CASAGRAS project by joining its new, free, global forum. CASAGRAS is an EU Framework 7 project aimed at promoting international collaboration on RFID standardization with particular reference to the emerging "Internet of things". Its partners represent the UK, Korea, Japan, China, the USA, Germany and France.

In the UK, more than 500,000 women are qualified to work in science, engineering and technology (SET) – but less than a third actually do so. Subsequently, to ensure that more women are attracted to the SET sectors, the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology has launched a chief executive officer charter for women in SET industries across the UK. Since its launch in March 2007, over 40 companies have signed, with the Institution of Engineering and Technology being the latest organization to join.

Electronics manufacturer, Prism Electronics Ltd, has helped Cambridge Micro Engineering deliver an innovative automated menu ordering system to a pioneering new London restaurant. Inamo is an oriental fusion restaurant and bar in Soho, central London, where control of the dining experience is placed in the hands of the diner. At the core of this experience is an interactive ordering system. Diners place orders from an illustrated food and drinks menu projected onto their table surface. They can also customize the mood of their table by changing lighting or choose from a selection of animated appearance settings to create a virtual tablecloth. Prism Electronics manufactured the printed circuit boards for the interface between a wireless electronic point-of-sale device and touchpad.

"Airline passengers are unwittingly facing higher levels of risks due to the increasing amount of aircraft system faults being reported when commercially convenient for the operator to repair, rather than when they actually occur," according to Fred Bruggeman, the AEI (Aircraft Engineers International) secretary general. "The situation is a cause of great concern because pilots are not immune to commercial pressures. With constant cost cutting by the airlines, many pilots feel the need to report defects only on homebound flights or flights into airports where engineers are available. As result, safety may be compromised to an unacceptable level."

Every year, thousands of British A-level and GCSE students must choose between continuing their education and getting jobs, however, the Forum of Private Business (FPB) recently announced the results of research indicating that the education system is not meeting the recruitment needs of owners of small businesses. "There is a clear gap between what businesses need and what businesses get when it comes to the ability of the education system to produce viable employees for small businesses," said Phil Orford, the FPB’s chief executive. "The results of the FPB's research prove that our members have issues when it comes to finding employees with basic attributes such as communication, numeracy and literacy, as well as more developed and specific skills that are required by individual businesses. The FPB hopes the Government takes note of what we have found and acts on our proposals."

Recent developments and announcements from major developers of organic electroluminescence (OLED) technology seem to be pointing towards the conclusion that 2011 will be the year when the first commercial OLED lighting applications will appear on the market. Prototypes have been demonstrated by several companies, such as NEC, OSRAM OS, Matsushita Electric Works and Koizumi Lighting Technology. Some of which are similar to conventional lighting elements, such as beautifully crafted desktop lamps and others, demonstrating the versatility of using OLED technology, are more intricately designed concepts. General Electric has also demonstrated the ability to use printing technologies to manufacture OLED panels on a roll-to-roll process and its optimization over the next few years will see the reductions in cost that are so inadvertently intertwined with the successful introduction of OLED products in the market.

The World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, and the Madrid and London train bombings have underscored the urgent need for continued research and development in the area of homeland defence sensors and systems that monitor and detect threats from gas, chemical, radioactive, and biological agents. Sensors allow us to monitor and detect abnormalities in the surrounding environment without human presence. Needed is sensor technology that can provide real-time detection to reduce the impact of threats; be deployed remotely so that direct contact with toxic agents can be avoided; and cover a large area – to increase detection efficiency. So where are we in terms of development and where do we go from here? Sheng-Jen "Tony" Hsieh of Texas A&M University gives us his view.

Professor Michelini's book is a prospectus from a distinguished engineer with a long technical career – spanning a full range of research interests running from dynamic systems through to full scale factory automation – on the developmental prospects of advanced industrial economies vis-à-vis resource sustainability in the face of population pressures and environmental concerns. Following a wide-ranging survey of economic systems, the book proceeds through three thematically organized chapters: on "knowledge entrepreneurship", "sustainable growth", and the "recovery process", the last of which deals with strategies to manage extant problems of resource depletion. Dan Coffey reviews.

A new national research centre, the National Centre for Advanced Tribology, is being set up at the University of Southampton in the UK to focus on solutions to real-life engineering problems, including the challenge of efficient renewable energy systems. The centre is funded by the largest-ever grant awarded to tribology by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Science and Innovation Awards. The funding is worth £3.3 million over five years and will ensure that the UK remains a leader in the field. The centre is also funded by the University of Southampton and industry partners bringing total funding to £10 million over the five years.

Pete Starkey reflects on the 34th Annual Symposium of the Institute of Circuit Technology (ICT) which took place in June 2008 at Tweed Horizons in the Scottish Borders. The event was very successful and well-balanced, and a credit to the efforts of ICT Technical Director Bill Wilkie and the staff of Tweed Horizons.

Have you heard of ManuFuture? If yes, then you will know that this term was formed from the words manufacturing and future and designates a European Technology Platform that is concerned about the European future of manufacturing. If not, then Christoph Hanisch is happy to tell you more about it, and about his dreams for the future.

Until recently, environmental sensors tended to be simple, unintelligent, connected directly into control systems, and static (or at best moved from place to place by separate transportation systems) … but all that is changing. Environmental sensors and networks of sensors are transforming everyday life by scrutinizing our environment and sometimes feeding into control systems that then adjust our environment to improve our processes and lives. Where then should we be concentrating research into environmental sensors in the future?

This new edition of Product Design for Manufacture and Assembly is a distillation of a lifetime's work for the authors. Although the book looks like a text book and is written by well-respected academics, it is more than just academic. If you are a manufacturer needing to reduce the cost of your products in a highly competitive international market, go out and buy this book. If you are a manufacturing student looking to learn something that will increase your value to potential employers, go out and buy this book. If you are a design engineer who wants to "make for a penny, what any fool can make for two" then go out and buy this book...

Although the field of medical robotics has produced lots of research results and many prototypes, few systems have really entered the operating theatre and demonstrated their clinical usefulness. In this viewpoint, Jocelyne Troccaz from TIMC Laboratory, CNRS, Grenoble University and Hospital, France, considers how robotics can be used to assist clinicians in their diagnostic or therapeutic tasks by focusing on robotic aids for moving and actuating medical sensors and tools in minimally invasive interventions.

The new European Union legislation concerning registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals (REACH) took effect on June 1 2007. The regulation gives greater responsibility to industry to manage the risks from chemicals and to provide safety information on substances. However, the results of IPC’s recent survey on REACH preparedness in the North American and European interconnect industry are striking – revealing that more than 40 per cent of manufacturing and purchasing personnel have no understanding of the REACH regulation as it affects their companies. The same holds true for nearly one-third of senior management and 29 per cent of engineering personnel. Even 28 per cent of environment, health and safety personnel have no understanding of REACH’s impact...

MicroTech 2008 was held at Beaumont House, Old Windsor, UK, on June 10 and 11 2008. The organizers, iMAPS UK, held yet another excellent conference, as always with something for everyone, and a wide range of interesting topics. iMAPS UK Chairman, Andy Longford, and his team of colleagues are to be congratulated for this most informative and enjoyable two-day event focused on microlectronics packaging.

A new technique that mimics healing processes found in nature could enable damaged aircraft to mend themselves automatically, even during a flight. As well as the obvious safety benefits, this breakthrough could make it possible to design lighter aeroplanes in future. This would lead to fuel savings, cutting costs for airlines and passengers and reducing carbon emissions too. This simple but ingenious technique has been developed by aerospace engineers at Bristol University, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Dr Jamal Khatib, Reader in Civil Engineering Materials at the School of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Wolverhampton, UK, reviews this reference book of benefit to the concrete industry. It is suitable for both professionals and researchers working in the field of concrete.

The European Institute of Printed Circuits Conference took place on January 24 and 25 2008 in Rome. Circuit World's associate editor, John Ling, was there to cover the event.

Erhan Butun, Associate Professor at the Civil Aviation College, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey, reviews this book which focuses on mobile robots designed using evolutionary computation approaches. Butun recommends this book as a reference both for beginners, engineers and researchers in this exiting new sphere of mobile robotics.

Anna Payne reviews a number of corporate and academic websites dealing with robotics. The reviews were previously published in Industrial Robot: An International Journal, Volume 35, Issue 3, and are of relevance to both researchers and practising engineers.

Andrew Lee-Mortimer examines the introduction of Kanban production control at a UK-based electronic product-manufacturing operation. The UK plant, which is part of Siemens Automation & Drives, employs 420 people in the design and manufacture of a range of electronic drives. Its achievements had previously been recognized by the winning of a host of awards therefore, the initial "surprise" for management when it started its new improvement offensive was not that lean offered a way to deliver performance improvements, but just how much potential for lean improvement was still present within the site.

This guide to flying is the only book of its kind to combine specially taken photographs and drawings with accessible and vibrant text to take the reader through the basics of flight and give them a taster of what it is like to pilot eight extraordinary planes. It targets the tens of thousands of serious would-be pilots around the world and the far larger number of people who dream about flying, appealing to their core emotions on the subject while also providing vital practical information.

After its successful premier last year in Shanghai, the China SMT Forum has now been scheduled for November 4-6, 2008 and will take place in the Shanghai International Exhibition Center (INTEX). The organizer, Business Media China AG, has issued the call for papers and is again expecting 250 participants for the conference and most industry leaders to attend the newly developed exhibition, which is already half sold out. The target of the China SMT Forum is to include the Chinese market into the global information exchange in the fields of SMT, electronic packaging, and assembly.

Richard Bloss, associate editor of Industrial Robot, reviews the 2007 biennial International Robotics and Vision Show held in Chicago, USA. Sponsored by the Robotic Industries Association and the Automated Imaging Association, this trade show has been the premier venue for robotics makers to demonstrate their products to North American manufacturers since the 1970s. Here, Richard presents an overview of the event.

Brian Ellis, pioneer of aqueous cleaning in the electronics industry in Europe, was presented with an Innovators Award by the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer at their 19th Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada, in September 2007. This award recognizes "the extraordinary contribution of entities whose daring and hard work facilitated the widespread implementation of alternatives or alternative technologies that enabled the phase-out of ozone depleting substances to take place". At an earlier meeting, hosted by the US Environmental Protection Agency, he was presented with a "Best-of-Best" Award, given to previous recipients of an EPA Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award who have achieved a very high level of commitment to saving the ozone layer.

This review of the 2007 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Conference and Show held in Washington DC offers insights into trends and new products, with emphasis on unmanned vehicles or service robots, their application on the ground, in the air and in the water. Developers will be challenged to meet the need for improvements in speed, payload, sensor capabilities, autonomous operation and command and control of fleets of unmanned vehicles.

Contrary to the nay sayers, the programmable logic controller (PLC) continues to evolve, but you would be wrong to think they are the still conceptually same beasts of yesteryear. Although, colloquially we recognize the PLC term, the functionality of some PLCs has changed dramatically.

Britain's population has grown by 8 per cent in the last 30 years or so, from 55.9 million in 1971 to 60.2 million in mid-2005, but this change has not occurred evenly across all age groups. With many of Britain's leading scientists and engineers looking to retire in the next decade, where is the next generation that will continue to provide the way of life its inhabitants have become used to? Who will build new buildings? Who will maintain the ones they already have? Ian Ling posed this question recently when he made his inaugural address as President of the Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) and offered up one very clear solution...

John Ling presents an overview of the 2nd Annual Innovative electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) Conference held at the Henry Ford College, University of Loughborough on the 5th September 2007. Topics covered include, but are by no means limited to, developments and trends in thermal management technologies; power electronics and the Micro Interconnections project.

Since 2002, Bremen has pursued the strategy described in the InnoVision 2010 document to become a leading high-tech region. The ambitious goal set up by the state government is to enter the top ten, in a national benchmark of 100 German cities, by 2010. This paper outlines technology and research activities in Bremen, which promotes itself as the mobile city, a trademark standing for innovation and supporting in innovative ways the necessary structural changes in the economy. It will be of interest to those in the field of R&D.

Wendy Hall CBE is Professor of Computer Science and Head of School at the University of Southampton. She was one of the first members of Southampton's computer science group and in 1994 she became the University's first female professor of engineering. In this interview, Professor Hall discusses her career and the new initiative focusing on Web Science research between the University of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Monozukuri means eco-friendly, sustainable design, manufacturing and assembly for the purpose of reducing waste, helping the environment, communities and, in the long term, increasing profits and product quality. Based on the author's factory visits at DENSO's Takatana plant in Japan, and in Michigan, USA, this paper discusses 18 monozukuri-focused lean assembly line design and factory management principles.

Nancy Rolph and Terry Savage interview Espen Olsen, Global Industry Director of IFS Commercial Aviation. IFS is a global enterprise applications company which provides software solutions that enable organizations to become more agile. Here Espen discusses his career and offers useful insights based on his experiences in industry.

With an estimated yearly value of some £100 billion turnover, the food sector is one of the largest economic sectors in the UK. Here, John O. Gray of the University of Salford discusses how the introduction of robotics to this traditionally labour-intensive industry will ensure the sustainability of a robust food manufacturing sector.

John Ling, Associate Editor of our electronics manufacture and packaging journals collection, talks to Professor Martin Goosey, Industrial Director of the Innovative electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) at Loughborough University. A chemist by training, with a PhD in microelectronics reliability, Martin has over 30 years' experience in the electronics industry. Read on to learn about the exciting developments and workings of the IeMRC.

During the last 20 years, interest in the closed adsorption heat pump and refrigeration systems has increased steadily. In this paper, consideration is given to aspects of adsorption refrigeration in terms of existing materials used in adsorption refrigeration, heat transfer characteristics of materials, and cost of materials and manufacturing.The paper provides information of value to those involved with heat pump and refrigeration systems technology.

Jan K. Sykulski is Professor of Applied Electromagnetics and Head of Group in Electrical Power Engineering at the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) of the University of Southampton. In this interview, Professor Jan Sykulski discusses the major challenges for electrical power engineering in the UK, declining industry investment in R&D, and the problems of recruitment into the profession.

This paper aims to describe a computer-aided design tool of permanent magnet electric machines. The software tool is operational from the first design phases and allows the study of coupled phenomena.

Are flexible electronics just a dream or a real probability? John Whitmarsh argues that the potential for business success and the possibilities for device fabrication on a large scale are there. He concludes that there is ample proof to show that flexible, lightweight, disposable electronics can be made.

John Ling, the Associate Editor of our electronics manufacture and packaging journals collection, talks with SMART Group Communications Director, Mike Judd, regarding the workings of the Group. The SMART Group exists for the advancement of surface mount and related technologies and is well known throughout the worldwide electronics industry.

To reinforce COMPEL’s links with COMPUMAG, this year saw the first presentation of a new “Young Researcher“ Best Paper Award to Tom Hilgert of Ghent University for his contribution to the paper “Comparison of magnetostriction models for use in calculations of vibrations in magnetic cores“.

Dr Peter Harrop is Chairman of IDTechEx Ltd, a knowledge-based consultancy company providing research and analysis on radio frequency identification, printed and organic electronics and smart packaging. In this industry profile he shares with us his thoughts on the future of printed electronics – a future where printed and even partially printed electronics can achieve startling new capabilities offering tremendous benefits to society.

This paper develops a knowledge management (KM) approach for the Iranian Aerospace Industries Organization. This study is probably the first to provide a benchmarked integrated KM approach based on multi case-study analysis. It opens up new lines of research and highlights implications for KM efforts through benchmarking, providing valuable information and guidelines which will help leaders deploy KM in their own organizations.

Despite all the “talk” of lean manufacturing, it is obvious that many manufacturers have yet to grasp the full benefits of this philosophy which is key for long-term manufacturing survival. One plant that exemplifies the required survival attitude and approach is Siemens Standard Drives based in Congleton, UK. This case study demonstrates how it often takes the wider focus offered by lean manufacturing to discover the hidden waste that can reside even in operations that appear to be very effective.

The Conference on Computational Electromagnetics (CEM) is an important gathering in the field of electromagnetics. COMPEL – The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering was proud to sponsor a Best Paper Award at CEM 2006. Winners were Patrick Bradley, Conor Brennan and Marissa Condon of the School of Electronic Engineering at Dublin City University for their paper, “Multipoint Arnoldi model order reduction for electromagnetic wave scattering computation”.

Steve Meyer, Sales Director of Autodesk Partner, Aceri Distribution Ltd, looks at how electrical design software holds one of the keys to improving the performance of UK manufacturing.

During a space launch, range safety is tasked with ensuring the safety of the public, the astronauts, the workforce and the equipment/facilities in that order. To prepare for a potential disaster, safety managers need to determine the population at risk. Decision-support systems based on computer simulations can enable safety managers to determine mitigation projects, and better understand the different risks associated with operations. To assist in the decision-making process, this team developed a virtual range system that is a prototype of a simulation environment. This is the first implementation of a virtual range.

The 3rd International Workshop on Biomodeling and Bioprinting was held in the Faculty of Engineering of the National University of Singapore (NUS) on the 10th-11th May 2006. In addition to the impressive list of international speakers was a student poster exhibition further highlighting the varied work being done in biomodelling and bioprinting. Emerald's Rapid Prototyping Journal sponsored three awards for the best posters. Read on for further details and to download the winning poster.

In this interview, Clifford Jones talks about the potential for renewable energy sources and their importance in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Clifford Jones has written some 300 research papers and articles and he is the author of six books. He is currently completing a seventh, a handbook focusing on the whole of fuel and energy science. It is expected to appear in early 2007.

Emerald Group Publishing Ltd is delighted to announce that the Fourth Annual Industrial Robot Innovation Award was recently presented at CLAWAR 2006. The winning paper "Force assistance system for standing-up motion” describes the development of a force assistance system that realizes natural standing-up motion using an infirm patient’s physical strength without reducing their remaining strength in any way.

Robotics is one of those subjects that leaves nobody indifferent. No matter if they are used in industry or in our homes, mimic human capabilities, or are used to access dangerous environments, launched to space, or simply used to play with, robots are always a source of human interest and admiration. Here the focus is on robots used to work in industrial environments, i.e., robots built to substitute man in certain industrial manufacturing tasks; that is, being a mechatronic co-worker for humans.

Back in the 1970s, computing based on X-ray crystallography, effectively solving hundreds of simultaneous equations, was the largest user of academic computing resources. This probably meant the largest user of all computing resources because, outside academia and government, only the very largest companies had computers. Indeed, at that time, one expected scientists to be the experts in computing...

Dan Steinbock talks to editor Sarah Powell about the development of mobile phone markets worldwide and the changing geography of innovation. Based in New York, Dan Steinbock is an Affiliate Researcher at Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia Graduate School of Business, Director of the New York City office of the Academy of Finland, and a Visiting Professor at the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland. Dr Steinbock lectures worldwide and has consulted for major international organizations such as the OECD and European Commission, and multinationals including Intel, Nokia and Ericsson. His research focuses on globalization, clusters, innovation and mobile communications.

This paper aims to describe a computer-aided design tool of permanent magnet electric machines. The software tool is operational from the first design phases and allows the study of coupled phenomena.

Most manufacturing enterprise network environments are characterized by numerous specialized and generally incompatible networks existing in one space. Today, however, thanks to the rapid and ubiquitous adoption of Internet technology, companies of all sizes worldwide are trying to find the best ways to connect the entire enterprise. This paper therefore seeks to discuss the development of the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP) which allows complete integration of control with information, multiple CIP networks and Internet technologies.

Legislation and consumer pressure are driving product recycling, and design for disassembly (DFD) is a critical enabling technology. This paper aims to highlight the importance of the DFD concept and consider the key principles. It shows that a series of simple design rules concerning product architecture, materials and fasteners can be used to implement DFD. It highlights the benefits arising from this strategy which include compliance with legislation and reduced component counts and material inventories.