Sustainable Manufacturing in China

Here the posters regarding the conference mentioned in my last article.

First in English:

Second in Chinese:

We are currently involvded in the organisation of an international conference about green manufacturing that is to be held here in Ningbo (…I have to say, most of the work is carried out by the team based in Nottingham, UK):

International Conference on Responsive Manufacturing in January 2010

The University of Nottingham Ningbo China is pleased to announce that the 5th International Conference on Responsive Manufacturing (ICRM) will take place at its Campus from 11^th to 13^th January 2010.

The conference will have a sustainability theme. Faced with growing concerns over the impact of human activity, policy-makers are faced with the problem of reconciling continued economic development and the need to reduce environmental harm. Manufacturing research and development must provide low carbon, low waste and energy efficient materials; and technologies and practices that support reuse, remanufacture and recycling of materials and products.

The goal of ICRM 2010 is to facilitate an exchange of information on best practices for sustainable manufacturing, addressing the problems and opportunities of a sustainable future. We hope to welcome a broad range of stakeholders to ICRM 2010, including companies keen to identify best practices in sustainable manufacturing, researchers active in this area, academics seeking to identify future research opportunities and legislators seeking to discover the latest possibilities for increased environmental efficiency.

Please visit the following webpage for more details:

www.icrm2010.org

Key dates

18 May 2009: Submission of abstracts

6 July 2009: Submission of the full papers for review

24 August 2009: Notification of acceptance of full paper with payment

7 Sept 2009: Registration of at least one of the authors

Just a quick update: I managed to get two speakers from BOSCH in Germany to give a guest lecture on cleaner cars (and other things, see poster for more information).  Two days ago I received already a big parcel with “BOSCH  in China” brochures from Shanghai for our students and other interested audience.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), Malaysia Branch, Young Members Section, is holding the Asia Oceana presentation competition “Speak out for engineering” at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (see figure).

The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) will host an internal competition on Monday, 02 March 2009 to select a participant for the above mentioned competition finals in Kuala Lumpur. For enquiries regarding the internal competition please contact Dr Chan Kuan Yoong who is organising the event on behalf of the IMechE. I am joining the event as one of the judges, and I am hoping to see some really interesting presentations.

Background:

“The competition is organised annually by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Regions/Branches. It was originally established in 1964 to challenge young engineers to prove that they could ‘communicate effectively’, which is still an important area for today’s developing engineers. In 1977 Her Majesty gave permission for the competition to be known as ‘The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Competition‘. The Competition has been adapted over the course of time to allow for greater articipation, but the original theme of ‘communicating effectively’ still remains the emphasis of the competition and in 2004 changed its name to ‘Speak Out for Engineering‘ Presentation Competition.” (http://www.imeche.org/industries/prizeaward/Speak_Out_for_Engineering)

Finally I can deliver the promised details on the remaining points listed in my post „Long time no see” (link to article):

1. A technological research proposal

We have submitted a research proposal called “Energy efficiency in the regional Ningbo automotive industry” to the University’s Inter Campus Research Development Fund, utilising the international nature of The University of Nottingham by involving the three campuses, Malaysia, China, UK, and associated partners.

The project’s overarching vision is to reduce cost, and energy consumption in manufacturing processes, whilst increasing the fabricated parts’ quality. To proof the concept from a technological point of view, this project focuses on the analysis of energy consumption in an extrusion blow moulding process. An initial industrial case has been selected here in Ningbo to assess the influence of different part design features, and process and equipment configurations on energy consumption.

2. A delegation of the Ningbo Municipal Government

On 05/12/2008 representatives of the municipal government visited UNNC to get an overview of the science and technology research of the University and to learn about the related future plans.  The delegation was led by the Vice-Mayor of Ningbo, who was accompanied by the director of the Science and Technology Bureau, the deputy director of the Personnel Office, the assistant director of the Education Bureau, and the director of the Industry and Science Department.

We prepared a short presentation of the Engineering Division outlining our teaching portfolio (2+2 programmes in Mechanical, Civil, and Environmental Engineering), our research theme “Sustainable Manufacturing” and our planned research activities. As a direct result of this meeting the Science and Technology Bureau supported our first research seminar, inviting local companies to take part. This brings me to my next point:

3. “Research in Green Manufacturing”

I admit the invitation to this workshop has been published (in this blog) on short notice , but then again, here in China things tend to happen/work on very short notice. A summary, containing details about how the workshop went, can be found in this article, which I have written for the University news.

4. Postgraduate open day, 7 Dec 2008

Kuan Yoong gave a presentation about the engineering division, informing potential students and their parents about the advantages of being an engineer. More information about the event can be found here.

5. China mission

The NIMRC research trip has already been described on 29/12/2008.

Sustainable manufacturing: Risk or Chance? -可持续制造：机遇与挑战？

Workshop Invitation

The Division of Engineering at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China and the Nottingham Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (NIMRC), UK are co-organising a workshop on research in the area of green manufacturing.

Interested parties should contact me by email or telephone (see contacts link above). Read the rest of this entry »

Siegfried (Sustainable Technologies), Kuan, and I (both Engineering) took the bus  early in the morning to Shanghai (ca. 2.5h, surprisingly much leg room) to attend the  international trade fair IFAT CHINA 2008 (http://www.ifat-china.com). Arriving at Shanghai South Bus Station, we found a taxi which offered a reasonable price. At this point Siegfried and I were very happy that Kuan speaks Mandarin otherwise we might have been lost already. However, after a 40 minutes taxi ride through Shanghai (very impressive) we finally arrived at the exhibition centre.

A range of sustainable solutions, latest technologies and a wide range of services in diverse fields of environmental protection were presented at the exhibition. Moreover, the adjacent scientific programme was of high quality, in particular the Sino-German Business Day, with high-caliber speakers:

Global environmental solutions were presented and discussed at IFAT China

“From Corporate Responsibility to Green Business Leadership – The Role of Eco-Efficiency in a Competitive Global Market”, Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, Former Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Former Federal Minster for Environment in Germany

“The Current Situation, Challenges and Strategy of Cleaner Production in China, NDRC”, Zhao Penggao, Director, Environmental Protection Division, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)

Full programme available at: http://www.ifat-china.com/en/Accompanyingprogram2008

Ningbo, 20 September, Theme 1: “Development of Industrial Design and Enterprises.”  The event was opened by a representative of the municipal government, emphasising that Ningbo needs to move from a purely manufacturing-based to a knowledge- and design-based economy. For that reason the municipal government supports several industrial design parks in Ningbo, whilst learning from countries world-wide.

Zhu Tao, the director of China Industrial Design Association, outlined the importance of combining academic studies, research and industrial production to strengthen China’s innovative power. In that context he highlighted the risk of inefficiency and mentioned that it is hard to find good examples for such collaboration. He highlighted the importance of cross-border cooperation with universities to provide better training for Chinese students and with industry to gain from foreign experience.

Next was an interesting presentation of Toshiyuki Kita, former chair of the judging committee of the Good Design Award, Japan, which unfortunately was only translated from Japanese into Mandarin… admittedly neither of mine is good enough yet to give any details.

Finally Francois Lenfent, the global design manager of America GE medical treatment, provided an overview on the global approach to design and innovation within GE. He stressed the importance of learning within innovation, touching the lead-user concept, and using and utilising existing developments in novel ways. Like the famous Peter Drucker he stressed that innovation is not realised by individuals but through organisations and their cultures. Finally Leufent mentioned that GE nowadays not only focuses on quality but also on green aspects of their products and that the company has launched various eco-friendly initiatives.

After the formal presentations I managed to have a very interesting chat with Francois Lenfent (we seemed to be the only European attendees on that day) about the wide field of sustainable manufacturing in general, but more interestingly within certain parts of GE.