Sustainable Manufacturing in China

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.

Yesterday Kuan Yoong and I visited Shanghai Tongji University. It was a day with a lot of highlights. The following of which should will be covered in 5 episodes (to make each post more readable, to give me more time to write the the posts, and to make the reader return to this webpage):

1. The very impressive newly developed Jiading Campus
2. Information exchange and discussions
3. Tour through  the  “Central Lab of Automotive College“
4. Viewing the Advanced Manufacturing teaching and research facilities
5. The first and probably last time that a driver in China was deservedly told that he drives too slow…not too fast

The very impressive newly developed Jiading Campus

The campus is placed in the suburbs of Shanghai, about 40 minutes drive from the more central Siping campus. It is quite big and all buildings are new. If I understood our host correctly only 30% of these buildings on campus are occupied yet. I personally like the architecture, particularly the combination of buildings and nature. As I learned yesterday, Tonji University is very famous for its Architecture and Civil Engineering and the campus has been designed by the University itself (as I think it should be in most Universities, also in different fields). Here a couple of photos I have taken (on my mobile out of the car, hence the quality):

More pictures and information can be found on the Tongji webpage.

A few weeks ago I went to a ‘Dies & Moulds’ exhibition here in Ningbo to get a bit of an overview of the market, perhaps make some contacts, or even spot some opportunities for collaboration… I don’t want to talk about the exhibition here… although, thinking about it, I think I could put quite an interesting article together summarising my experiences at exhibitions in Ningbo.

Anyway, at this exhibition I was kindly invited to visit a Machinery & Moulds company in Ningbo.  When following that invitation, it turned out dimensions here in China are not the same as in Germany and certainly not as in England.

“In Ningbo”, in this case meant going by car for about 2h before reaching the factory (on the way back we took a ferry across the sea…for some reason this was not necessary on the way to the factory…). The place we visited still belongs to the Ningbo Municipal Area and might also have the same area-phone-code (0574…), however, it cannot be called part of the City Ningbo anymore (click on the map to see the route, http://maps.google.com).

Read the rest of this entry »

Following the article “Long time no see…” from December 13, 2008 I would like to give a brief overview of my trip to selected Chinese research institutions active in the area of green manufacturing.

The research trip was organised by Professor Nabil Gindy (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/school3m/staff-look-up/staff-by-role.php?id=NTM2NjEz&page_var=personal), director of the Nottingham Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (NIMRC) and his researcher Dr Yan Wang to get an insight of the sustainable manufacturing related research carried out across China. Under consideration of the recent establishment of the “Centre for Sustainability in Global Manufacturing” as part of the NIMRC, the exploration of possible collaborations was a particular aspect of the visits.

At this point, I would like to outline the journey (the map gives an indication of the places visited): 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

Dr Kuan Yoong Chan, a colleague from the Engineering division, and I have visited the Ningbo Institute of Technology (NIT) located in the Zhejiang University (http://www.nit.net.cn/index.jsf).  Zhejiang University opened in 2001 and is located in walking distance to the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China.

After a warm welcome by the foreign affairs officer we were introduced to the dean of mechanical engineering and her team. A brief introduction of both UNNC and NIT followed, before discussing specific research areas in more detail.

Architecture on NIT campus

This was followed by a lab tour, which showed that some of the machines are used for commercial production. It was agreed that we will invite the NIT engineers to pay us a return visit and that we exchange ideas with regard to energy efficiency in production exploring the possibility of a common research project.