Network-based Digital Manufacturing Environment

A major international (regional) joint research project was started in December 2006 between Wuhan University of Technology (WHUT), China and the Manufacturing Engineering Centre (MEC) at Cardiff University, UK. The title of this three years joint research project is “Research on New Theory and New Technology for Network-based Digital Manufacturing Environment”. This project is coordinated by the principal investigator Professor Zhou Zude, the President of WHUT. The research team in Cardiff University is led by Professor D T Pham, the Director of the MEC.

The first year project review meeting organised by WHUT was held from November 28 to 4 December 2007. During the formal presentations the MEC introduced the I*PROMS NoE and its ongoing activities which are of interest to the Digital Manufacturing Environment project. Link between the two projects were made while Dr Dejun Chen from WHUT was in Cardiff to work on the Digital Manufacturing Environment project. He and other researchers from WHUT contributed and participated in IPROMS 2007 conference. Publishing a book on Digital Manufacturing, organising a symposium in Digital Manufacturing in 2008, organising an international conference in Digital Manufacturing in 2009, preparing new joint research projects, developing and implementing a Digital Manufacturing Web Portal, and arranging academic visits were some of the items discussed and planned during this meeting. In addition, visits to the Digital Manufacturing Key Laboratory and engineering training centre, Key Laboratory of Fibre Optical Sensing Technology and Information Processing, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, new campus of WHUT, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have been organised. Dr Chunquian Ji and Dr Michael Packianather would like to thank Professor Zhou Zude, Dr Dejun Chen and the entire team in WHUT for organising and hosting the first year review meeting and for the their kind hospitality.