Author Description

Rapid development observed in modern production systems is firmly connected with the development of new assembly and disassembly systems. One of the oldest forms of industrial production, assembly, and its twin area disassembly, have both enjoyed tremendous modernisation in the era of the Information Revolution. New enabling technologies, including prominent examples such as virtual CAD, Design for Assembly and Disassembly (DFAD), Robotic and Intelligent Assembly and Flexible Assembly (FA) are now becoming commonplace. This volume presents the papers from the 2nd IFAC Workshop on 'Intelligent Assembly and Disassembly - IAD 2001'. The colloquium highlighted the issues of IAD, showed the actual results of the research and development work, set the direction of future development, and analysed the possibility of introducing IAD into production processes. Including 3 invited papers, and 17 technical papers authored by researchers from across the globe, the papers cover important fields of product development such as product design, development of planning systems, simulation and modelling, as well as sessions on e-manufacturing and education.