Conference Summary
	1.Introduction
	The Joint Conference of “The 8th Young Scientists Conference on Design and Manufacturing Sciences” and “The 8th S.M. Wu Symposium on Manufacturing Sciences” (ICFDM 2008) was held in Tianjin Grand Theatre on September 23-26, 2008. The conference theme is “Innovation and Development of Design and Manufacturing Technologies”. Conference keynote speakers included: Dr. Stefan Kaierle, Chairman of European Laser Institute and Director of Department of System Technology at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Germany; Prof. David J. Whitehouse from the School of Engineering at the University of Warwick in the UK; Dr. Alan Taub, Executive Director of Science Labs of GM R&D in the U.S.; Dr. Ji Oh Song, Executive Vice President of the Mechatronics & Manufacturing Technology Center of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd in Korea; Prof. Shaochen Chen, Program Director of Nanomanufacturing Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the U.S.; Prof. Jay Lee from the University of Cincinnati in the U.S.; Prof. Bingheng Lu, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University; and Prof. Wanming Zhai from the Traction Power State Key Laboratory at Southwest Jiaotong University.
	2.Review
	September 23, 2008
	----The 1st NSFC-NSF Joint Workshop on Frontiers of Manufacturing Science and Engineering was held at Geneva Hotel from 5 pm to 7:30 pm. The workshop had more than 60 participants, including NSF and NSFC program directors, National High-tech R&D Program (863 Program) experts, and outstanding scholars in the field of engineering. The workshop is chaired by Prof. Albert Shih from the University of Michigan. At the workshop, Prof. Jun Ni from the University of Michigan delivered a presentation on “Investigation on the Development Programs of Mechanical Engineering in US Universities”; Prof. Shaochen Chen made a presentation titled “US National Science Foundation Program in Mechanical Engineering”; Prof. Guobiao Wang, Director of the Division of Mechanical Engineering of the Department of Engineering and Material Sciences at the NSFC, made a report on “NSFC Granted Programs in ME & Investigation on The Development Programs of ME in Chinese Universities”. Much discussion was also carried out among the participants on “Priority Research Areas of ME in Next Ten Years”. After the workshop, participants had dinner with Jiajun Li, Chairman of Tianjin Municipal Science and Technology Commission.
	September 24, 2008
	8:30-9:15
	The Opening Ceremony of The Joint Conference of “The 8th Young Scientists Conference on Design and Manufacturing Sciences” and “The 8th S.M. Wu Symposium on Manufacturing Sciences” (ICFDM 2008) was held in Tianjin Grand Theatre. The conference had more than 700 participants from various universities and research institutions. The ceremony was presided over by Prof. Tian Huang from Tianjin University. Addresses were made by Prof. Gequn Shu, Vice President of Tianjin University; Prof. Jiaguang Sun, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Vice President of the NSFC; Prof. Shaochen Chen; Xuejun Cao, Deputy Director of the Division of Advanced Manufacturing and Automation, Department of High and New Technology Development and Industrialization, Ministry of Science and Technology of China; Ms. Daisy Wu, President of Shien-Ming Wu Foundation; and Chaoying Chen, Standing Member of Tianjin Municipal Committee and Secretary of the Work Committee for the Guardian.
	9:15-11:50
	Dr. Stefan Kaierle made a keynote speech on “From Flexible to Adaptive Manufacturing: an Approach for Laser Materials Processing”; Prof. David J. White house made a keynote speech on “Surface Metrology for Control of Manufacture”; and Prof. Jay Lee made a keynote speech on “Dominant Design for Product and Service Innovation: Strategies, Tools, and Case Studies”. Prof. Jun Ni and Prof. Peihua Gu chaired the keynote presentation.
	13:30-16:00
	----“Keynote Lectures and Discussion on Nanomanufacturing” was held in the International Hall of Tianjin Grand Theatre. Prof. Fengzhou Fang from Tianjin University and Prof. Albert Shih chaired the session. More than 200 experts and researchers in the field of nanomanufacturing attended the session. Keynote speakers in the session are Prof. Shaochen Chen and Prof. Bingheng Lu. Prof. Shaochen Chen made a speech on “US National Science Foundation Program in Nanomanufacturing”, introducing program areas and funding in the field of nanomanufacturing. Prof. Bingheng Lu made a presentation titled “Nonomanufacturing-Vision and Missions”. He proposed key issues in the manufacturing industry in China, analyzed opportunities and challenges for nanomanufacturing in China, and elaborated the scientific issues in nanomanufacturing. After the lectures, Dr. Kamlakar P. Rajurkar from the NSF and Chinese scholars made brief introduction of their own research achievements in the field of nanomanufacturing. Participants in the session also discussed on problems in nanomanufacturing.
	13:30-17:45
	ICFDM 2008 consisted of nine sessions. Each session was made up of paper presentations followed by a panel discussion. These sessions were: “Robotics Mechanisms and Transmissions (RMT)”; “Machinery Dynamics (MD)”; “Design Theory and Methodology (DTM)”; “Metrology and Surface Technology (MST)”; “Materials and Metal Forming (MMF)”; “Machine Tools and Processes (MTP)”; “Manufacturing Systems and Automation (MSA)”; “Micro/Nano Mechatronics (MEMS)”; and “Control, Transducers and Metrology (CTM)”.
	18:00-20:00
	The Welcome Banquet was held in the Dinning Hall of Tianjin Grand Hotel. The banquet was hosted by Prof. Shuxin Wang from Tianjin University. Prof. Jianping Liu, Secretary of Tianjin University. More than 900 conference participants and invited guests were present at the banquet.
	September 25, 2008
	8:30-11:35
	Keynote lectures were held in Tianjin Grand Theatre. Dr. Ji Oh Song made a speech on “Innovations and Challenges in Global Manufacturing”. Dr. Alan Taub made a speech titled “Driving Change in the Automobile Industry: Technology Trends and Challenges in the 21st Century”. Prof. Wanming Zhai delivered a presentation on “Theory and Application of Railway Vehicle-Track Coupling Dynamics”. Prof. S. Jack Hu and Prof. Chuanzhen Huang chaired the lectures. Prof. Xu Han, Dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering of Hunan University, made a report on the preparation of ICFDM 2010.
	13:30-18:00
	Paper presentation and panel discussion were carried out in each session.
	20:00-23:00
	The ICFDM PC/SC Meeting was held in the Jingquan Hall of Tianjin Geneva Hotel. The meeting was presided over by Prof. Jun Ni and Prof. Peihua Gu. Participants included Director of the Division of Mechanical Engineering of NSFC, ICFDM 2008 Program Committee and Scientific Committee members/proxy members. The discussing items were: 1) Presentations by ICFDM 2012 candidate universities (Chongqing University, Northeast University, and Shanghai University) and vote for the host university (Chongqing University); 2) Decision on the evaluation procedure and ten recipients of the Best NSFC Completed Project Award and ten of the Best NSFC On-going Project Award; 3) Decision on the evaluation procedure of the Best Paper Award (ten recipients); 4) Decision on ten recipients of the Dedicated Service Award and two recipients of the Best Organizer Award; 5) Discussion on innovation and development of ICFDM conference.
	September 26, 2008
	8:30-17:45
	Paper presentation and panel discussion were carried out in each session.
	18:00-20:00
	The Closing Ceremony of ICFDM 2008 was held in the International Hall of Tianjin Grand Hotel. The ceremony was presided over by Prof. Shuxin Wang from Tianjin University and Prof. Fangyu Peng from the NSFC. The procedure of the Closing Ceremony is as follows: 1.Review past ICFDM conferences by Prof. Jun Ni; 2.Announce and present the recipients of the Dedicated Service Award (Daisy Wu, Jun Ni, Zexiang Li, Bi Zhang, Jay Lee, Yuanzhong Lei, Peihua Gu, Ming Li, Tianhu Song, and Dongming Guo) and the recipients of the Best Organizer Award (Xi’an Jiaotong University as the host for ICFDM 2004 and Tianjin University as the host for ICFDM 2008) by Prof. Guobiao Wang; 3.Announce and present the recipients of the Best Paper Award by Prof. S. Jack Hu; 4.Announce and present the recipients of the Best NSFC Completed Project Award and the Best NSFC On-going Project Award by Prof. Fangyu Peng; 5.Announce Chongqing University as the host for ICFDM 2012 by Prof. Guobiao Wang; 6.Acknowledge the participants for their participation by Prof. Guobiao Wang as the representative of the conference organizer; 7.Acknowledge the participants by Prof. Gequn Shu as the representative of Tianjin University.
	3.Conclusions
	ICFDM 2008 will promote theoretical research and engineering application of mechanical engineering and increase national academic level in the field of mechanical engineering. There were 618 manuscripts submitted to the conference. Among these papers, 515 were accepted after review. The conference consisted of nine sessions. Presentation and discussion were grouped in 67 rooms by topic. The topics are: “Robotics Mechanisms and Transmissions (RMT)”; “Machinery Dynamics (MD)”; “Design Theory and Methodology (DTM)”; “Metrology and Surface Technology (MST)”; “Materials and Metal Forming (MMF)”; “Machine Tools and Processes (MTP)”; “Manufacturing Systems and Automation (MSA)”; “Micro/Nano Mechatronics (MEMS)”; and “Control, Transducers and Metrology (CTM)”. In each room, one or two presented papers were selected by the chairs as candidates for the Best Paper Award and around 130 papers in the pool were recommended for publication on Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering. NSFC completed and on-going projects in the field of Mechanical Engineering were demonstrated in the conference. These projects included 2004 and 2005 General Program Projects, 2003 and 2004 Key Program Projects, 2006 and 2007 one-year projects. In the projects, six completed projects were approved in 2003; 173 completed and four on-going projects were approved in 2004; 211 on-going projects were approved in 2005; three completed projects were approved in 2006; and one on-going project was approved in 2007. Ten recipients for the Best Completed Project Award and ten for the Best On-going Project Award were selected from 182 Completed Project Reports and 216 On-going Project Reports. The general consensus was that ICFDM 2008 was a success and Tianjin University won the Best Organizer Award as the host. This conference was reported by Jin Wan Bao, Tianjin Daily, People’s Daily Online, TJST, Enorth, Sohu, HC360, and Tianjin Information.
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