Productivity enhancement is a major concern for all manufacturing enterprises. Productivity enhancement can be achieved in many ways and many facets of its problems have been investigated over the last decades. A number of methods, tools and technologies have emerged to efficiently increase productivity and rationalize management of manufacturing enterprises. International experts from both academia and industry share their experiences in this collection of articles, contributing to the latest advances in the many facets of productivity enhancement in manufacturing enterprises. Themes and visions are detailed on factories of the future, new management approaches, manufacturing system integration and manufacturing information systems. These technical areas can be grouped into four major sections: Factories of the future; Techniques and tools for automated manufacturing; Robotics; and Industrial applications. The papers illustrate a pattern of valuable and interesting approaches to the fascinating problem of designing a new generation of robots with high enough performance capabilities to be used in an industrial context.

Well known researchers in all areas related to featured based manufacturing have contributed chapters to this book. Some of the chapters are surveys, while others review a specific technique. All contributions, including those from the editors, were thoroughly refereed. The goal of the book is to provide a comprehensive picture of the present stage of development of Features Technology from the point of view of applications in manufacturing. The book is aimed at several audiences. Firstly, it provides the research community with an overview of the present state-of-the-art features in manufacturing, along with references in the literature. Secondly, the book will be useful as supporting material for a graduate-level course on product modeling and realization. Finally, the book will also be valuable to industrial companies who are assessing the significance of features for their business.

The papers presented at the Second International Conference on Robotics and Factories of the Future held in San Diego, California, USA during July 28-31, 1987 are compiled in this volume. Over two hundred participants attended the conference, made technical presentations and discussed about various aspects of manufacturing, robotics and factories of the future. The number of papers published in this volume and the number of unpublished presentations at the conference indicates the evidance of growing interest in the areas of CAD/CAM, robotics and their role in future factories. The conference consisted of five plenary sessions, twenty three technical sessions, workshops, and exhibits from local industries and educational institutions. I wish to acknowledge with many thanks the contributions of all the authors who presented their work at the conference and submitted the manuscripts for publication. It is also my pleasure to acknowledge the role of keynote, banquet, and plenary sessions speakers whose contributions added greatly to the success of the conference. My sincere thanks to all session chairmen. I wish that the series of the International Conferences on Robotics and Factories of the Future which was initiated in 1984 in Charlotte, North Carolina will have a major impact on the use of robots and computers in the automated factories of the future.

According to the Concurrent Engineering Research Center (CERC) at West Virginia University, "the concurrent engineering (CE) is a rapid simultaneous approach where research and development, design, manufacturing and support are carried out in parallel". The mission of concurrent engineering is to reduce time to market, improve total quality and lower cost for products or systems developed and supported by large organizations. The purpose of the concurrent design methodology is to let the designer know the consequences of his design decisions in the manufacturing and assembly stages as well as in subsequent operations. Design for manufacture and assembly, design for reliability and testability, CAD/CAM/CAE, knowledge based systems, cost analysis and advanced material technology are the major constituents of concurrent engineering. The need for concurrent engineering can be justified from the fact that in every production cycle, the design phase approximately takes 5 to 10% of the total cycle, but overall it influences 80% of the production cycle. This volume contains articles from a wide spectrum dealing with concepts of concurrent engineering. The importance of the knowledge-based systems in the CE environment is significant as they provide the common platform to achieve the same level of expertise to the designers and manufacturers throughout the organization for the specific task. Their role in "do it right the first time" is very important in providing aid to the designers and manufacturers to optimize the design and manufacturing setups for a cost effectiveness and reduced production time.

Presented in this book are some of the most relevant aspects of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) in Japan. The volume compares the development of CIM in the context of Japan as well as that of Europe and the United States. It includes studies of the implemented CIM systems in many companies. In addition, the book contains a study concerning Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS), and the basis for preparation of the so-called Future Generation of Manufacturing Systems (FGMS). This volume gives a better understanding of Japanese competitiveness using advanced technology. People coming from the manufacturing industry, managers, engineers, officials and researchers will find in this book a rich source of material for understanding the crucial elements in technology development, and its actual and future implementation.

Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) involve substituting machines capable of performing a wide and redefinable variety of tasks for machines dedicated to the performance of specific tasks. FMS can also be programmed to handle new products, thus extending the machines' life cycles. Thus they represent a change from "standardized goods produced by customized machines" to "customized goods produced by standardized machines". This volume contains new and updated material in this field, and will be of great interest to researchers, managers and students concerned with problems related to flexible manufacturing systems.

Industrial Robots Programming focuses on designing and building robotic manufacturing cells, and explores the capabilities of today’s industrial equipment as well as the latest computer and software technologies. Special attention is given to the input devices and systems that create efficient human-machine interfaces, and how they help non-technical personnel perform necessary programming, control, and supervision tasks. Drawing upon years of practical experience and using numerous examples and illustrative applications, J. Norberto Pires covers robotics programming as it applies to: The current industrial robotic equipment including manipulators, control systems, and programming environments. Software interfaces that can be used to develop distributed industrial manufacturing cells and techniques which can be used to build interfaces between robots and computers. Real-world applications with examples designed and implemented recently in the lab. Industrial Robots Programming has been selected for indexing by Scopus. For more information about Industrial Robotics, please find the author's Industrial Robotics collection at the iTunesU University of Coimbra channel.