Today the Scottish electronics industry employs 40,000 people directly and a further 30,000 in the supply infrastructure. There are now more than 550 electronic manufacturing and supplier companies in ' Silicon Glen'. In terms of the contribution to the economy, electronics is by far the most valuable industry. Its value in 1996 was approximately £ 10billion and accounted for more than half of Scotland's exports. The major product groupings within the industry include: • PCs, laptops and workstations • Disk drives, cable harnessing • Printers, keyboards and peripherals • Semiconductor devices and PCBs • TV, VCRs, CDs, stereos and other consumer electronics • Cellular phones and telecommunications products • A TMs and funds transfer systems • Networking and security systems • Navigation and sonar systems • Microwave products • Power supplies • Software and compilers Many of these companies are multi-national OEMs, who came to Scotland as inward investing companies. Early inward investing companies were from USA, followed by companies from Japan, and more recently from Taiwan and Korea. An important segment of the industry is involved in the manufacture of computers, including IBM, Compaq, Digital and Sun. In fact approximately 40% of the PCs sold in Europe are built in Scotland. With five of the world's top eight computer manufacturers locating a manufacturing base in Scotland there has been an attraction for foreign companies keen to provide service for these multinationals. In 1995/96 the supply base output was worth £1.

Information-Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology contains the proceedings of an international symposium on "Information-Control Problems in Manufacturing Technology" held in Tokyo, Japan, on October 17-20, 1977 under the auspices of the International Federation of Automatic Control. The symposium provided a forum for discussing various engineering and technical problems in the automation of every step of the manufacturing process including design, machining, material handling, assembling, and inspection. Comprised of 46 chapters, this book begins by describing the modeling and simulation of a production system for small batch size metalworking production with high automation and high flexibility. The discussion then turns to the conceptual design of a multi-purpose automated Integrated Production Center for batch or piecewise production; research issues for automatic assembly; and practical application of diagnostic signature analysis to testing of rotating machines. Subsequent chapters focus on a profile pattern recognition system for machine parts; automatic inspection of defects on contact parts; the use of material-handling robots for programmable automation; and extra-cyclic passages of gray codes and their applications in numerical control design. This monograph will be of interest to engineers and technicians employed in the manufacturing industry.

The first Digital Enterprise Technology (DET) International Conference was held in Durham, UK in 2002 and the second DET Conference in Seattle, USA in 2004. Sponsored by CIRP (College International pour la Recherche en Productique), the third DET Conference took place in Setúbal, Portugal in 2006. Digital Enterprise Technology: Perspectives and Future Challenges is an edited volume based on this conference. Topics include: distributed and collaborative design, process modeling and process planning, advanced factory equipment and layout design and modeling, physical-to-digital environment integrators, enterprise integration technologies, and entrepreneurship in DET.

The 18th CIRP International Conference on Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) 2011 continues a long tradition of scientific meetings focusing on the exchange of industrial and academic knowledge and experiences in life cycle assessment, product development, sustainable manufacturing and end-of-life-management. The theme “Glocalized Solutions for Sustainability in Manufacturing” addresses the need for engineers to develop solutions which have the potential to address global challenges by providing products, services and processes taking into account local capabilities and constraints to achieve an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable society in a global perspective. Glocalized Solutions for Sustainability in Manufacturing do not only involve products or services that are changed for a local market by simple substitution or the omitting of functions. Products and services need to be addressed that ensure a high standard of living everywhere. Resources required for manufacturing and use of such products are limited and not evenly distributed in the world. Locally available resources, local capabilities as well as local constraints have to be drivers for product- and process innovations with respect to the entire life cycle. The 18th CIRP International Conference on Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) 2011 serves as a platform for the discussion of the resulting challenges and the collaborative development of new scientific ideas.

The global population is expected to rise to 9.8 billion by the year 2050 - with everyone ultimately striving for prosperity. New methods must therefore be found to achieve more efficient production. Research to date shows that the biological inventory that has evolved: its products, processes, principles and tools, can spur modern technology. The development of technological innovations based on biological concepts, with the goal of particularly innovative and sustainable value creation, today is collectively known as "biological transformation". It results in highly functional products with striking properties that can be both manufactured and utilized in a resource-saving way. In terms of taking responsibility of the good of all people, biological transformation is therefore a path that applied research will have to take. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has recognized the developmental technology potential of biological transformation and sees it as its task not only to drive the relevant research forward, but also to promote public awareness of the topic.