Dealing with environmental issues should no longer be considered simply as a cost of doing business. Effective environmental improvements to a company's products and services can be turned into business opportunities. This book was written with the express purpose of helping managers of companies, in particular of Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), to better deal with environmental challenges and address customer requirements, all in order to turn their environmental inve- ments into competitive market advantages. Several examples are provided throughout the book, but also warning signs (Alert Boxes). These "Alerts" are posted to help managers avoid typical traps when working with environmental considerations in business processes. The authors have many years of experience in the various aspects of impleme- ing Ecodesign. This experience includes working in industry for many years; le- ing the environmental departments in a multinational company; managing research projects in eco-product development; Life Cycle Assessment; and national and international environmental communication and marketing. This book is the latest in a series. The 2002 "Ecodesign Pilot" introduced a tool and software to help design more environmentally compatible products. It was directed specifically at designers. The 2004 book, "Ecodesign Implementation," was written to help project managers optimize product development processes from an environmental perspective.

This professional treatise on engineering graphics emphasizes engineering geometry as the theoretical foundation for communication of design ideas with real world structures and products. It considers each theoretical notion of engineering geometry as a complex solution of direct- and inverse-problems of descriptive geometry and each solution of basic engineering problems presented is accompanied by construction of biunique two- and three-dimension models of geometrical images. The book explains the universal structure of formal algorithms of the solutions of positional, metric, and axonometric problems, as well as the solutions of problems of construction in developing a curvilinear surface. The book further characterizes and explains the added laws of projective connections to facilitate construction of geometrical images in any of eight octants. Laws of projective connections allow constructing the complex drawing of a geometrical image in the American system of measurement and the European system of measurement without errors and mistakes. The arrangement of projections of a geometrical image on the complex drawing corresponds to an arrangement of views of a product in the projective drawing for the European system of measurement. The volume is ideal for engineers working on a range of design projects as well as for students of civil, structural, and industrial engineering and engineering design.

Purchasers of manufactured goods demand assurance that the purchased product will perform satisfactorily over its expected life. Warranties play a vitally important role in providing this assurance, in two ways. Firstly, warranty terms can provide a promise of protection in the event of a product failure. Secondly, effective warranty service can assure customer satisfaction in the event of a warranty claim. Successful use of both of these requires proper warranty management.

The authors of Warranty Management and Product Manufacture have developed "Stage-3" warranty management, that views warranties from a strategic perspective, beginning with a warranty strategy that is linked to technical and commercial planning from the very start of the product development process.

The aim of warranty management is to achieve the overall business objectives by focussing on both product performance assurance as well as ensuring customer satisfaction, the ultimate goal of warranty management. Warranty Management and Product Manufacture provides guidelines for achieving this goal.

Written by two of the worlda (TM)s leading experts in warranty management, this monograph details the most up-to-date thinking in this key area of product manufacture. It will be an invaluable guide for managers in product development, production and marketing as well as graduate students in business and operations management and industrial engineering.

The Story of Ferrari is a pocket-sized and exceptionally designed celebration of the legendary manufacturer. Speed, luxury, excellence and innovation have defined Ferrari as the world's most revered car manufacturer for more than 70 years. In The Story of Ferrari, every key aspect of the Prancing Horse's history is explored and showcased, from the first car built under the Ferrari name in 1947 through to the global giant and cultural force it has become today. Delving into the design and engineering philosophies instilled by Enzo Ferrari, this book highlights the most iconic models across decades of Ferrari history, including the 125 S, F40, Testarossa and Enzo. Ferrari is also the most successful name in motorsport, with 16 Formula 1 Constructors' Championship titles to its name. The stories of its victories and adversities on the track, as well as the drivers and engineers who helped make it such a success, are covered here as well. Filled with stunning imagery and insightful commentary, The Story of Ferrari charts the history of this legendary marque in a package worthy of the name.

With the unprecedented advancements in computing power coupled with the societal movement towards inclusive settings, there is no better time than today to strive for assistive technology equity in terms of universal implementation within a transdisciplinary perspective. The Handbook of Research on Human Cognition and Assistive Technology: Design, Accessibility and Transdisciplinary Perspectives marks a critical milestone in the history of implementation and practice of assistive technology. The intent of this book is to assist researchers, practitioners, and the users of assistive technology to augment the accessibility of assistive technology by implementing human cognition into its design and practice. Consequently, this book presents assistive technology as an intervention for people with disabilities from a transdisciplinary perspective.

This book offers psychologists and those who are involved with systems design an overview of changing technology and guidelines for using new techniques in the design and development of systems in the workplace. The first part of the book concerns productivity and cognitive assessment. The papers provide state of the art appraisals of robotic perception, artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, decision making and the control of automation systems. The second part, on systems design research, discusses a number of key applied human factors problems, including supervisory control systems, human workloads, methods of systems design, job aiding, and human factors considerations.

Moving from theory into practical reality, ergonomics has come of age as a useful tool for generating safe, comfortable, and productive working environments. Tackling both the simple and complex aspects of a variety of workplaces, Office Ergonomics: Practical Applications demonstrates how to create offices that accommodate all workers. The book contains practical advice on how to maintain an office environment that promotes a healthy, safe, and efficient workforce.

Covering workstation design, selection, layout, and use, the book details the impact of computers on worker well-being, particularly when used under unfavorable conditions, and discusses how ergonomics can accommodate disabled workers. The author emphasizes the need to offer 'protection' to people involved in manual handling in offices, an issue that is frequently overlooked, and offers advice on how to work satisfactorily in non-office environments. She explores the possible negative outcomes, such as back pain, headaches, and upper limb disorders, of a poorly designed workstation.

Walking you through all the features of an office, the book provides insight into the potential problem areas that workers often encounter. The book explains how to identify suitable workstation furniture, test it, trial it, and introduce the final selection so the workforce accepts it. The author draws on first-hand experience dealing with difficulties in many types of office situations to provide straightforward, easily applicable advice on how to improve the workplace to reduce the likelihood of workers experiencing discomfort, ill-health, and dissatisfaction.

Originally published in 1967, this title reveals how the missionaries, so often misguided and short-sighted, were in fact pioneers of modernization, science and freedom. The structure of the book allows for comparative analysis and the volume illustrates how some of the social consequences of action through the schools could be foreseen. In addition light is thrown on the results of Imperial rule during the nineteenth century and on the nature of the impact of Western education in Asia and Africa.

In this monograph, the authors demonstrate how the integration of adaptability, operability, and re-configurability in the design of complex systems is indispensable for the further digitization of engineering systems in smart manufacturing. Globalization of the customer base has resulted in distributed and networked manufacturing systems. However, current design methods are not suitable to address variations in product design, changes in production scale, or variations in product quality necessitated by dynamic changes in the market. Adaptability, operability, and re-configurability are key characteristics that are necessary to address the limitations of the current methods used to design networked manufacturing systems. In recent years, the digital transformation driving Industry 4.0 has had an enormous impact on globally distributed manufacturing. Digitalisation, the integration of digital technology into networked engineered systems, is increasingly being adopted to respond to changes in the market. This is achieved by means of (a) the concurrent design of adaptable systems, (b) addressing flexibility in design parameters, (c) conducting an operability analysis, and (d) employing a reconfiguration strategy to address faults and variances in product quality and re-establish connectivity among the elements in the system. The design of manufacturing systems in the age of Industry 4.0 is addressed in this monograph. The authors introduce the concept of a 'smart platform' and a computational framework for the digitalization of networked manufacturing systems. They also suggest how the framework and techniques in this monograph are applicable beyond the manufacturing domain for architecting networked engineered systems in other industries such as chemical processes and health care, that are being transformed through the adoption of the Industry 4.0 construct.

The importance of research and education in design continues to grow. For example, government agencies are gradually increasing funding of design research, and increasing numbers of engineering schools are revising their curricula to emphasize design. This is because of an increasing realization that design is part of the wealth creation of a nation and needs to be better understood and taught. The continuing globalization of industry and trade has required nations to re-examine where their core contributions lie if not in production efficiency. Design is a precursor to manufacturing for phy- cal objects and is the precursor to implementation for virtual objects. At the same time, the need for sustainable development is requiring design of new products and processes, and feeding a movement towards design - novations and inventions. There are now three sources for design research: design computing, design cognition and human-centered information technology. The foun- tions for much of design computing remains artificial intelligence with its focus on ways of representation and on processes that support simulation and generation. Artificial intelligence continues to provide an environm- tally rich paradigm within which design research based on computational constructions can be carried out. Design cognition is founded on concepts from cognitive science, an even newer area than artificial intelligence. It provides tools and methods to study human designers in both laboratory and practice settings.

This is the 2nd volume of the new conference series Design Computing and Cognition (DCC) that takes over from and subsumes the successful series Artificial Intelligence in Design (AID) published by Kluwer since 1992. The AID volumes have become standard reference texts for the field. It is expected that the DCC volumes will perform the same role. The conference proceedings will form a continuing archive of design computing and cognition research. Design is a fundamentally important topic in disciplines ranging from the more commonly associated fields of architecture and engineering to emerging areas in the social sciences and life sciences. Design is the key to economic competitiveness and the fundamental precursor to objects - both physical and virtual - and services. The conference theme of design computing and cognition recognizes the relationship between human cognitive processes as models of computation but how the models of inspire realizations of human cognition.

Ontologies are increasingly recognized as essential tools in information science. Although the concepts are well understood theoretically , the practical implementation of ontologies remains challenging. In this book, researchers in computer science, information systems, ontology engineering, urban planning and design, civil and building engineering, and architecture present an interdisciplinary study of ontology engineering and its application in urban development projects. The first part of the book introduces the general notion of ontology, describing variations in abstraction level, coverage, and formality. It also discusses the use of ontologies to achieve interoperability, and to represent multiple points of view and multilingualism. This is illustrated with examples from the urban domain. The second part is specific to urban development. It covers spatial and geographical knowledge representation, the creation of urban ontologies from various knowledge sources, the interconnection of urban models and the interaction between standards and domain models. The third part presents case studies of the development of ontologies for urban mobility, urban morphological processes, road systems, and cultural heritage. Other cases report on the use of ontologies to solve urban development problems, in construction business models, building regulations and urban regeneration. It concludes with a discussion of key challenges for the future deployment of ontologies in this domain. This book bridges the gap between urban practitioners and computer scientists. As the essence of most urban projects lies in making connections between worldviews, ontology development has an important role to play, in promoting interoperability between data sources, both formal (urban databases, Building Integrated Models, Geographical Information Systems etc.) and less formal (thesauri, text records, web sources etc.). This volume offers a comprehensive introduction to ontology engineering for urban development. It is essential reading for practitioners and ontology designers working in urban development.

Contemporary urban studies engages a wide range of approaches in the analysis of the processes at work in urban areas. These approaches derive from anthropology, economics, geography, history, politics and sociology as well as from the professional experience of town planning and architecture. Social process and the city reflects this growing cross-disciplinary engagement. This shows the important, problematic, role which cities in particular, and urban change in general have played in the growth of Australia. The overriding concern of each essay in this collection is to develop an understanding of the ways urban areas function and an awareness of how differing interpretations of 'urban phenomena' might be applied. This attention to the nature of the forces at work, and the processes these forces manifest themselves in, is extended both empirically and conceptually. This book was first published in 1983.

Professor Bird presents a synthesis of the many approaches to the study of a central featuer of modern life - the city, including its distant past and its future. He sees centrality as a mental projection on to space, and discusses the concept in relation to three types of its manifestation in spatial terms: the city as centre of a tributary region; the centres and central areas of cities themselves; and the city considered as a centre or gateway for other distant regions, often overseas. This book should do much to unravel the funamental similarities between cities of the world while recognizing the myriad variations upon a common theme. This book was first published in 1977.

Do large cities grow more or less rapidly than small ones? Why should the relationship between city size and population growth vary so much from one period to another? This book studies the process of population growth in a national set of cities, relating its findings to the theoretical concepts of urban geography. To test his ideas, the author studies the growth of cities in England and Wales between 1801 and 1911. His explanations draw strongly on the connection between growth and the adoption of innovations. He develops a model of innovation diffusions in a set of cities and, in support of this model, looks at the way in which three particular innovations - the telephone, building societies and gaslighting - spread amongst English towns in the nineteenth century. This book was first published in 1973.

IFIP Working Group 5.2 has organized a series of workshops aimed at presenting and discussing current issues and future perspectives of Geometric Modeling in the CAD environment. From Geometric Modeling to Shape Modeling comprises the proceedings of the seventh GEO workshop, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and held in Parma, Italy in October 2000. The workshop looked at new paradigms for CAD including the evolution of geometric-centric CAD systems, modeling of non-rigid materials, shape modeling, geometric modeling and virtual prototyping, and new methods of interaction with geometric models. The seventeen included papers provide an interesting overview of the evolution of geometric centric modeling into shape modeling. Also included is an invited speaker paper, which discusses the foundation of the next generation of CAD systems, where shape and function enhance geometric descriptions. The main topics discussed in the book are: Theoretical foundation for solids and surfaces; Computational basis for geometric modeling; Methods of interaction with geometric models; Industrial and other applications of geometric modeling; New paradigms of geometric modeling for CAD; Shape modeling. From Geometric Modeling to Shape Modeling is essential reading for researchers, graduate and postgraduate students, systems developers of advanced computer-aided design and manufacturing systems, and engineers involved in industrial applications.

In creating the value-added product in not distant future, it is necessary and inevitable to establish a holistic and though-evoking approach to the engineering problem, which should be at least associated with the inter-disciplinary knowledge and thought processes across the whole engineering spheres. It is furthermore desirable to integrate it with trans-disciplinary aspects ranging from manufacturing culture, through liberal-arts engineering and industrial sociology.

The thought-evoking approach can be exemplified and typified by representative engineering problems: unveiling essential features in Tangential Force Ratio and Interface Pressure, prototype development for Bio-mimetic Needle and application of Water-jet Machining to Artificial Hip Joint, product innovation in Heat Sink for Computer, application of Graph Theory to similarity evaluation of production systems, leverage among reciprocity attributes in Industrial and Engineering Designs for Machine Enclosure and academic interpretation of skills of mature technician in Scraping .

The book is intended to cultivate the multi-talented engineer of the next generation by providing them with the future perspective and ideas for challenging research and development subjects."

Anthony Dear argues that just-in-time is essentially a philosophy rather than a rigid methodology and that the important thing is to grasp the fundamental ideas involved and then to see where, how and to what extent they can be applied in the context of any particular enterprise. The book is written in a refreshingly direct manner and the discussion focuses on the kind of practical issues which are likely to concern working managers. Illustrated with a wealth of examples drawn from the author's own experience, Working Towards Just-in-Time tackles its subject in a fashion which has direct and immediate relevance to managers of small and medium-sized companies and to middle management in larger firms. This book should be of interest to managers of small and medium-sized companies; middle management in larger firms.

This book deals with the analysis, the design and the implementation of the mechatronic systems. Classical and modern tools are developed for the analysis and the design for such systems. Robust control, H-Infinity and guaranteed cost control theory are also used for analysis and design of mechatronic systems. Different controller such as state feedback, static output feedback and dynamic output feedback controllers are used to stabilize mechatronic systems.

Heuristic algorithms are provided to solve the design of the classical controller such as PID, phase lead, phase lag and phase lead-lag controllers while linear matrix inequalities (LMI) algorithms are provided for finding solutions to the state feedback, static output feedback and dynamic output feedback controllers.

The theory presented in the different chapters of the volume is applied to numerical examples to show the usefulness of the theoretical results. Some case studies are also provided to show how the developed concepts apply for real system.

Emphasis is also put on the implementation in real-time for some real systems that we have developed in our mechatronic laboratory and all the detail is provided to give an idea to the reader how to implement its own mechatronic system.

Mechatronics Systems: Analysis, Design and Implementation is an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate students in mechatronic system and control theory and as a reference for academic researchers in control or mathematics with interest in control theory. The reader should have completed first-year graduate courses in control theory, linear algebra, and linear systems. It will also be of great value to engineers practising in fields where the systems can be modeled by linear time invariant systems.

Direct Engineering (DE) is the creation of a product development cycle into a single, unified process. The design process in most industries is an evolutionary one (i.e., incremental changes to some existing design). DE is a manufacturing process that seeks to improve the design processes by providing complete archival documentation of existing designs. It uses three-dimensional geometric models with integrated manufacturing information throughout the design process. DE reduces the design cycle, and the variety and number of engineering changes. This process decreases the design cycle time, increases productivity, and provides a higher quality product. The required technologies and methodologies that will support the development of the DE environment are: (1) product representation using feature-based modeling; (2) knowledge-based applications that will support the entire product development cycle; (3) an engineering environment implemented around distributed computing and object-oriented systems; (4) direct manufacturing techniques using rapid prototyping. Direct Engineering: Toward Intelligent Manufacturing addresses the following recent topics related to the development, implementation, and integration of the DE environment: (1) the current scope of the research in intelligent manufacturing; (2) the results of the technologies and tools developed for integrated product and process designs, and (3) examination of the methodologies and algorithms used for the implementation of direct engineering.

This book discusses concepts of good design from social perspectives grounded in anthropology, sociology and philosophy, the goal being to provide readers with an awareness of social issues to help them in their work as design professionals. Each chapter covers a specific area of good practice in design, explaining and applying a small set of related concepts to a series of case studies, and including a list of additional sources recommended for further study. The book does not assume any specialized, technical background knowledge; it is not a how-to book that offers technical instruction. Yet, it focuses on the assessment of designs, addressing concepts qualitatively (with a small exception for the concept of risk). Based on an established university course on Design and Society at the Centre for Society, Technology, and Values that the author offers for students from a variety of disciplines, the book represents a valuable resource for students in engineering, architecture and industrial design - helping prepare them for careers as design professionals - and for all readers in design-related professions interested in understanding a side of design that they may well never have considered systematically. Because of its broad scope and non-technical presentation style, the book may also appeal to general readers interested in social issues in design and technology.

The dilemma facing Cyprus--that of limited water supplies (both in terms of quantity and quality) in the face of steadily increasing water demand, coupled with a fragmented institutional structure of the water sector--is characteristic of most arid and semi-arid countries all over the world. Another common characteristic of Cyprus is that the water management administrative boundaries there do not coincide with the hydrological ones, while the ongoing political problem of the island creates significant administration problems.

The chapters of this book summarize the lectures delivered du ring the NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) on Computational Methods in Mechanisms, that took place in the Sts. Constantin and Elena Resort, near Varna, on the Bulgarian Coast of the Black Sea, June 16-28, 1997. The purpose of the ASI was to bring together leading researchers in the area of mechanical systems at large, with special emphasis in the computational issues around their analysis, synthesis, and optimization, during two weeks of lectures and discussion. A total of 89 participants from 23 count ries played an active role during the lectures and sessions of contributed papers. Many of the latter are being currently reviewed for publication in specialized journals. The subject of the book is mechanical systems, Le., systems composed of rigid and flexible bodies, coupled by mechanical means so as to constrain their various bodies in a goal-oriented manner, usually driven under computer con trol. Applications of the discipline are thus of the most varied nature, ranging from transportation systems to biomedical devices. U nder normal operation conditions, the constitutive bodies of a mechanical system can be consid ered to be rigid, the rigidity property then easing dramatically the analysis of the kinematics and dynamics of the system at hand. Examples of these systems are the suspension of a terrestrial vehicle negotiating a curve at speeds within the allowed or recommended limits and the links of multiaxis industrial robots performing conventional pick-and-place operations."

Presenting the proceedings of the Ergonomics Society's annual conference, the series embraces the wide range of topics covered by ergonomics. Individual papers provide insight into current practice, present new research findings and form an invaluable reference source. A wide range of topics are covered in these proceedings, including Ergonomics, Human Factors and User-Centred Design. It also features related disciplines such as Psychology, Engineering and Physiology. Particular emphasis is given to the utility of these disciplines in improving health, safety, efficiency and productivity. The 2006 Annual Conference features four special sessions on:Usability of Homes; Human Computer Interaction; Human Factors in the Oil, Gas and Chemical Industries; and Control Room Design: Current and Future Challenges. As well as being of interest to mainstream ergonomists and human factors specialists, Contemporary Ergonomics will appeal to all those who are concerned with the interaction of people with their working and leisure environment - including designers, manufacturing and production engineers, health and safety specialists, occupational, applied and industrial psychologists and applied physiologists.