The unique focus of the book is the close symbiotic relationship between design and manufacture. It covers a large number of actual issues in the field by authors from the main research groups involved in developing methods, models and tools for the improvement of design and manufacturing processes in companies. It presents a selection of thirty-three papers ensuing from the fifth International Conference on Integrated Design and Manufacturing in Mechanical Engineering, held at the University of Bath, UK, in April 2004.

The contributions are divided in the following sections: two keynotes presenting the general synergies and relationships between the design and manufacturing processes through the concepts of production knowledge and integration; design strategies and methodologies, dealing with the critical element of knowledge in design and manufacturing processes and the methods with which designing can be undertaken collaboratively in an integrated manner; integrated design of manufacturing processes, which aim is to ensure a high quality product meeting all requirements, rapidly and at optimum cost; and design tools for particular applications in which texts optimising local decision have been grouped.

The book is of interest to academics, students and practitioners specialising in design and manufacturing issues in mechanical engineering, who will find it of the greatest interest to compare various points of view within the fields broached throughout the Conference. This volume is recommended as a reference textbook for all researchers in this field. It will give teachning staff confronted with training methodologies in integrated design and production a toolto assess the scope of the development prospects in an extremely wide ranging field.

This book presents a selection of papers related to the fifth edition of book further to the International Conference on Integrated Design and Manufacturing in Mechanical Engineering. This Conference has been organized within the framework of the activities of the AIP-PRIMECA network whose main scientific field is Integrated Design applied to both Mechanical Engineering and Productics. This network isorganized along the lines of a joint project: the evolution, in the field of training of Integrated Design in Mechanics and Productics, in quite close connection with the ever changing industrial needs over the past 20 years. It is in charge of promoting both exchanges of experience and know-how capitalisation. It has a paramount mission to fulfil, be it in the field of initial and continuous education, technological transfer and knowledge dissemination through strong links with research labs. For the second time, in fact, the IDMME Conference has been held abroad and, after Canada in 2000, the United Kingdom, more particularly Bath University, has been retained under the responsibility of Professor Alan Bramley, the Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the conference. The Scientific Committee members have selected all the lectures from com mplete papers, which is the guarantee for the Conference of quite an outstanding scientific level. After that, a new selection hasbeen carried out to retain the best publications, which establish in a book, a state-of-the-art analysis as regards Integrated Design and Manufacturing in the discipline of Mechanical Engineering.