The last decade has seen the emergence of a unified approach for product design which attempts to combine traditionally distinct tasks such as design, management, marketing, analysis, manufacture and materials. Often called "Concurrent Engineering" or "Simultaneous Engineering", this new philosophy aims at improving cost competitiveness by reducing waste of time, money, and other resources inherent in the iterative traditional methods. In view of the importance of this new philosophy, concurrent engineering was selected as the theme for the conference on which this text is based. The main objective of the conference was to bring together researchers and practitioners from government, industries and academia interested in the multi-disciplinary and inter-organizational productivity aspects of advanced manufacturing systems utilizing CAD/CAM, CAE, CIM, parametric technology, AI, robotics, and AGV technology. A selection of the papers presented at the conference are presented in this, and a companion volume, and emphasize aspects of concurrent engineering and flexible automation. This book of proceedings on robotics, automation and production engineering is intended for researchers and practitioners from government, industries and academia interested in advanced manufacturing systems.