Efficient Manufacturing: Materials, Processes, and Systems

Dear Colleagues,

This topic aims to provide a collection of advances in manufacturing that are driven by current societal, ecological and economical trends requiring ever increasing efficiency, as we are facing urgent challenges of global sustainability. For most goods it is not enough to have simply the ability of their production. But rather the materials, processes and systems used in the production must be as efficient (in resources, energy, time, cost etc.) as possible, to grant access to a large customer base without depleting nature’s resources. A prime example is the production of new energy vehicles, which should have a low resource usage during production and their life cycle but must also be sufficiently affordable to make a positive global impact. The topic includes but is not limited to:

• Material related aspects of scalable and sustainable manufacturing, for example hybrid composite materials and new formulations to conserve or replace scarce resources.
• Manufacturing processes that are energy efficient, offer high thruput or automation capabilities even in small, flexible batches.
• Advanced manufacturing systems that can help to conserve time, material or energy compared to conventional systems by employing intelligent control systems, optimization strategies, resource recovery and the like.

Prof. Dr. Junying Min
Dr. Christopher Ehrmann
Dr. Nan Li
Topic Editors