Sustainable Manufacturing in China

Today the Engineering Division was visited by a film crew, accompanied by Tim Utton, deputy director of communications,  Nottingham, UK (see picture above, considering its quality it does not look like I have got a future in the film or photography business). They were filming the engineering area and our newly fitted teaching laboratories. Furthermore, they interviewed Dr Kuan Yoong Chan, our Head of Division.

According to the communications department the filming aims at producing an overseas DVD for the University of Nottingham “to promote and celebrate the research, teaching and learning taking place on the China and Malaysia campuses“

Personally I was not involved in this event, but I managed to sneak in and take a few snapshots whilst the crew was filming Kuan Yoong. Afterwards I became an interviewer myself “grilling” him about how he felt being questioned by the film team. Here is what Kuan Yoong said:

“It was a nice experience to be interviewed in front of the camera, I just hope I have covered all the relevant points for Engineering. The highlight of the interview was when I made the point about China being the factory of the world, which we all know. Let’s hope next time they come to film us, sustainability or sustainable manufacturing will start to be a part of that world factory.“

The first week of the new semester has just started. However, I would like to look back to the end of the last teaching period: As part of the 1st year Engineering Communication and IT skills – course we organised a poster cometition for our students. They put a lot of time and effort into the design of their posters, accordingly it has been extremely difficult to decide on the winners.

How does the poster competition relate to sustainable manufacturing in China?

All three winning posters deal with sustainability related topics. Admittedly, it is debatable how much they relate to sustainable manufacturing in China directly. Anyway, as they say, “a picture says more than a thousand words.” I suggest having a look:

1. Green Roofs – Research in the 21. Century

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »