Sustainable Manufacturing in China

This week’s link for the weekend contains case studies published by BestPractices on the bases of implemented and completed projects. BestPractices takes part in projects to demonstrate ways of energy saving in an industrial context:

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Although not related to green-technologies, this post at least relates to China:

Last week we finished our 5 weeks Mandarin course (I took part in the ‘intermediate‘ course, which in fact is more like a beginners #2 course) offered by the University to its members of staff  (4d/w, 2h/d).

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Yesterday Spiegel.de wrote about the 2009 State of the future report which will be made available to the public soon. The report is published by the Millennium Project. People involved in this project try to name and describe the biggest challenges that humanity is facing in the upcoming decades.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations states that the report gives “Invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its Member States, and civil society.“

I am thinking about getting a mobile computer (for quite a whileby now…). I am looking for something really handy to surf the internet and to work with the common MS Office applications when on the road. Therefore I have followed the recent trend of netbooks and after seeing them in action I was actually convinced to get one.

However, when it comes to choosing the ‘right’ solution things become more difficult. I had narrowed down the choice to actually two candidates already (using, amongst others, the ranking here and reading the actual test results):

I was just about to go with the Asus one (due to the SSD resulting in better performance) when I read this article on http://www.goodcleantech.com :

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In order to offer some kind of service through this blog, I would like to introduce a new series:

‘Link for the Weekend‘

This idea is inspired by the blog “Design Tagebuch” (DT) which features a rubric called “linktipp-am-sonntag” in which the author recommends interesting design-related webpages (on a fairly regular basis -always on Sundays- hence the name).

As follows you can find two examples of these Sunday link tips given by DT: The first one links to an interview given by Andrej Kupetz (an expert on appearance-related design) in the newspaper Handelsblatt (in German…). Kupetz talks about the importance of good appearance and design – especially in the context of difficult economic circumstances. The second example introduces two pages promoting Art & Design “made in Germany” – just have a look and see whether you like it.

Above, I mentioned that this new series was ‘inspired’ by DT, I could also put it in other words (perhaps more bluntly) and say that I just nicked the idea from DT. As a consequence I would like to make DT the very first link of this new series:

Design Tagebuch

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The first and probably last time that a driver in China was deservedly told that he drives too slow…not too fast

One thing that I think is very different from the UK in China is the way the traffic works…and yes it works… (though it includes or at least I see many more accidents…). Drivers, taxi drivers in particular, seem to be very competitive and have probably not heard about fuel efficient ways of driving a car…

Anyway, after a long day in Shanghai our driver decided on several occasions, for no apparent reason, to slow down to about 80 km/h – on the motorway. At one occasion he even used the breaks to go down to 50 km/h (he seemed a little tired) – at this point my colleague decided to let him know he is going to slow and that he should speed up… to give you a comparison, I have used taxis that went over 100km/h crossing a number of red traffic lights (just announcing themselves by excessively using the horn) in the city of Ningbo- 30km/h allowed.

The photo above is taken from www.helloningbo.com “Ningbo’s leading English magazine and website for visitors and expatriates“. Clicking on it brings you to a very useful page that contains a manual for using Taxis in Ningbo.

The CNN Video above introduces a racing car that is (supposed to be) green… a question could be ‘how can something that is fundamentally needless (such as a racing car) whilst using resources be green?’

I think this is not the point here, the video shows the great efforts that Warwick University puts into researching greener materials and their application (to make it clear, I think the team at Warwick is doing a great and extremely valuable job!). Applying these to such a complex system as a F3 racing car imposes additional difficulties that the research team has to deal with, by this means rigorously testing their research findings. In addition, their case is a great way in presenting the research to the general public but also in disseminating the results to OEMs world-wide (I think the publicity gained through e.g. CNN is a great reward for the Warwick-team).

The justification can be expanded by the educational aspects of such a project. It is for that reason that here at UNNC we are encouraging our Engineering students to develop a concept for the Shell Eco-Marathon 2010:

“The Eco-marathon is a fuel efficiency challenge programme encouraging technology and innovation among today’s youth. It serves as an excellent platform for students to showcase their creativity and innovativeness in meeting the energy challenge, and gain practical experience for the future” (http://www.shell.com/home/content/eco-marathon-en/asia/welcome_sem_asia.html).

PS: Although there is a link on the CNN webpage providing html code to embed the video, it did not work. It is for that reason that I linked their page to the picture above. Any advice would be appreciated.

Tour through  the  “Central Lab of Automotive College“

When visiting the labs I was surprised to see a group of about 10 Laoweis or perhaps a little more polite Weigoaren. Although being not too close they seemed to  be Germans… Anyway, they were engaged in a converstation looking at VW cars and  we had to follow our hosts. Asking our guide politly it turned out that the foreigners were visitors from BMW who were interested in fuel cell technology. I missed my chance…we did not happen to meet them again.

The lab itself was very impressive – engine testing, exhaust analysis, anechoic chamber, different vibration testing rigs, roller type test stand (including a robot to be placed in the car  to shift the gears – I remember students being paid to sit in the car and shift the gears…) and so on. Somehow, I recognised a lot of German brands on the installed testing equipment. After the testing facilities we were brought to a fleet of test cars, including golf cart-type developments for the Shanghai Expo (batterie powered).

Viewing the Advanced Manufacturing teaching and research facilities

The second lab tour included the Advanced Manufacturing teaching and reasearch facilities. These labs were newly installed. The teaching facilities were very practical and very specific. The research facilities included a range of milling-, turning-, and grinding-machines and metrology equipment. According to our host many of these machines were provided to the University free of charge, in some cases the contact to industry was made through former students of Tongji.

Information exchange and discussions

After delivering a colleague of ours from Nottingham, UK to the School of Surveying and Geo-Informatics on Siping Campus  we visited the School of Mechanical Engineering at Jiading Campus where we were welcomed by Linda Wang from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (www.imeorg.com). Together we joined a meeting with Prof. Lin Jianping, and his colleagues, one of them working in the field of Micromachining.

Because our journey from Ningbo to Shanghai took longer then expected we tried to keep the presentation part shorter (free speech instead of PowerPoint)  moving quickly to the discussion part: Professor Lin Jianping introduced the School of Mechnaical Engineering to us and gave us a couple of marketing brochures. Kuan Yoong then introduced the Ningbo Campus and our Engineering Division in general terms before I presented the NIMRC, its research areas introducing particularly our efforts (including the work at UNNC)  and initiatives related to green manufacturing. Over a working lunch a presentation about Microelectrochemical Machining was given to us (based on a CIRP paper 2008).

At Tongji they are currently expanding the area of green manufacturing, however, the laboratory was not finished yet. Instead we managed to expand the lab tours by a tour through  the  “Central Lab of Automotive College“, a true highlight of the day.