ASME Offers Recommendations to Help Advance Manufacturing in China

ASME Offers Recommendations to Help Advance Manufacturing in China ASME Offers Recommendations to Help Advance Manufacturing in China ASME Offers Recommendations to Help Advance Manufacturing in ChinaSun Zhaohua (left), the vice administrator from Chinas State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, presents a commemorative plate to ASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb during the 2014 SATEC meeting. Transforming China from a country with enormous manufacturing capacity, but a focus on inexpensive merchandise, to one that produces high-value products - from big to strong manufacturing - was the overarching theme of the 2014 Sino-American Technology and Engineering Conference (SATEC) held last month in China.A contingent of volunteers and staff including ASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb and Executive Director Thomas Loughlin participated in the event, which is a bi-yearly conference where leaders representatives from various engineering organizations and government agen cies meet to offer the Chinese government advice for developing its industrial policy. Other groups participating the 2014 SATEC meeting included the Chinese Academy of Engineering the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs the Chinese Institute of EngineersUSA the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers Chinas Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Water Resources the Beijing Municipal Government the Provincial Governments of Anhui, Fujian and Hunan Province as well as the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd. ASMEs delegation at the 2014 SATEC meeting (left to right) Randy Reagan, director, engineering knowledge Dr. Yang Xiaoping of the Societys Manufacturing Division Michael Michaud, managing director, ASME global alliances ASME Executive Director Thomas Loughlin ASME President Madiha Kotb Steven R. Schmid, of the University of Notre knigin Ralph Resnick of America Makes Tom Kurfess from Georgia Institute of Technology and Qiang Zhang, executiv e director of ASME Asia Pacific LLC. During the first part of the four-day meeting, the ASME Advanced Manufacturing Team, consisting of 10 ASME volunteers from the Societys Manufacturing Division, conducted inspections of four manufacturing sites in the Hunan Province. The gruppe - including experts from Ford Motor Co., General Motors, and Cummins, as well as other companies and universities - then composed a list of recommendations, which ASME President Kotb presented to Chinas Vice Premier Ma Kai and several other senior officials from various ministries during the conferences wrap-up meeting held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 30.Noting that the four companies inspected each exhibited notable strengths, yet significant challenges exist for each company to transform itself from big to strong in terms of manufacturing, the teams suggestions included a list of three short-term recommendations, which it called the three Ss system, smart service, and safety. Ad dressing the first S, system, the team recommended that manufacturing issues should be assessed from the product life cycle management perspective to ensure global optimization and lowest cost of ownership. Sharing the teams other two short-term recommendations, Kotb talked first about Smart Service, noting that to succeed in todays market, product design should go beyond satisfying explicitly expressed customer requirements and aggressively pursue hidden customer requirements. The smart way to identify hidden customer requirements is to leverage big data efficiently. On the subject of safety, the team stressed the importance of promoting the use of proper protection equipment, such as ear plugs and protective eyewear. The safety of the manufacturing workplace is vital.The ASME Advanced Manufacturing Teams conclusions also included three long-term recommendations to help advance manufacturing in China. First, industry should identify gaps in critical components and subsystem manufac turing, and attempt to close those gaps. Chinese companies should also prioritize protecting intellectual property and developing a smart patent strategy. Third, China should improve its research on critical manufacturing technologies in order to produce more world-class products, the team said. ASME volunteers and staff at the Great Hall of the People following the meeting with Vice Premier Ma Kai (left to right) Qiang Zhang, Yang Xiaoping, ASME President Madiha Kotb, and Randy Reagan. The theme of transitioning Chinas manufacturing industry from big to strong was also the connecting thread that ran through the one-day SATEC Forum on New Industrial Revolution and Intelligent Manufacturing, which was held on May 29 in Beijing. Organized by ASME, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society and the State Administration of Foreign Affairs Experts, the Forum featured representatives from China and the United States discussing robotics, au tomation, additive manufacturing and other emerging technologies, and sharing their thoughts on the new geschftsleben models, product innovations and improved standing in the world manufacturing market that widespread adoption of intelligent manufacturing could bring to China in the future.ASME provided three speakers for the special forum, which attracted an audience of about 250 people. ASME Fellow Thomas Kurfess, professor of engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and former Assistant Director of Advanced Manufacturing at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, presented a session on the topic Policy Issues and Technology Targets for Manufacturing in the United States of America during the forums morning program. ASME Fellow Steven Schmid, professor of engineering at the University of Notre Dame and former ASME Foundation Swanson Fellow, discussed Planning for the Future of Intelligent Manufacturing during a session that afternoon. Ralph Resnick, founding director of the National Additive Manufacturing Institute (America Makes), gave a presentation on the industrial applications of additive manufacturing and their impact on defense and aerospace later that day.Qiang Zhang, executive director of ASME Asia Pacific LLC and Michael Michaud, managing director, ASME global alliances, also represented ASME at the meeting.