Professor Rong, Professor Li, and Ted made a trip to MI and OH. Professor Rong visited GM Powertrain, Chrysler Tech Center, and Ford Tech Center for R&D update in US automotive industry and technical discussion. Professor Rong also visited Kettering university where Ted was doing research project. They had a meeting with Professor Lucy King, the collabolator of the project at Kettering, for technical discussion. Professor Rong and Professor Li met with President Tao Zhan of Sandong University, China, and Vice President Jingsong Wang of Tsinghua University, China, who were attending a University President Forum at University of Michigan, where Professor Li was visiting for two days. Professor Li and Ted also visited an Industrial Advisory Board Meeting of NSF I/UCRC for Intelligent Maintenance Systems at GM Tech Center. Finally all of them visited Ohio State University on the way back. They met Professor Taylan Altan and his visiting scholar from Shandong University, Zhongqiu Wang, at the Engineering Research Center for Net Shape Manufacturing. The trip was very productive.

Professor Rong attended the Technology Forum organized by Next Generation Manufacturing Technology Initiative (NGMTI), held at Andover, MA, from May 8 - 10, 2006. Professionals from Government, Industry, and Academia got together to share their vision of global manufacturing and the solutions to US manufacturing industry.

Professor Rong and Yao Zhou attended TMS Annual Conference at San Antonio, TX in March 12-15, 2006. Yao presented a paper on Heat Treatment Process Optimization. They met and had meetings with Mark Samonds from ESI, Professor Hal Brody from UConn, Professor John Morral from Ohio State, Dr. Qigui Wang from GM, and Professor Shoumei Xiong from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Dr. Rong spent eight weeks in Hong Kong for IQP (junior projects) advising. He and Professor Karen Lemone from CS advised 24 students for six projects, sponsored by Hong Kong Civic Exchange and Caritas Adult and Higher Education Service. The project reports can be accessed through WPI website, http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/. They are,

1.Harbor Reclamation: Central and Wanchai Districts, by Christopher Doody, Daniel Kim, Alex Lee, and Andres Sucre

2. Urban Planning and Development of Kai Tak Area of Hong Kong, by Wai-Mun Leung, Michael P. Miller, Michael A. Pierce, and Irene Tsai

3. Assessing Urban Development on the Reclaimed Land in Sheung Wan, by Kathrin Kurek, Joseph Labenski, and David Moquin

4. Teenagerrs, Technology and Education at Caritas Charles Vath College, by Trisha Josephs, Larry Sartoris, Adam Sheehan, Matthew Zimmermann

5. Evaluating Sub-degree Programs at Caritas Francis Hsu College, by Ivan LaBruna, Elizabeth Marcks, Steven Starowicz, and Richard, McGuinness

6. A Study of Distance Education at Hong Kong Universities, by Franklin Angulo, Robert Darneille, Ryan McLaughlin, and Eric Wong

During his staying in Hong Kong, Dr. Rong participated the International Cconference on Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM), and presented a paper on Technology Hub for Supplier-based Manufacturing. He also visited many major universities in Hong Kong, including, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, City University of Hong Kong, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, as well as University of Macau.

During this period of time, Dr. Rong made two trips to the main land of China, basically for the preparation of MQP in China in summer 2006. He visited Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in Wuhan, as well as Tongjin Hospital in HUST, Saint Gobain Shanghai Operations in Shanghai, American Industrial Partners China operation at Wuxi, as well as Shanghai Jiaotong University and Zhejiang University. Five real world projects have been identified for both WPI and HUST students to perform in summer 2006. Dr. Rong also visited several companies in Shenzhen and Huizhou, and met many former class mate, students, and friends. Many of them have not met each other for twenty years.

Dr. Rong's brother and his family joined him during the Chinese New yesr time for three days. This was the first time for Dr. Rong to celebrate this event in China in last twenty years.

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Professor Rong attended SME Management Forum: Digital Manufacturing and Manufacturing Process Management, on Wednesday, April 6, 2005 in Los Angeles, CA.

Professor Rong Attended The 9th CIRP International SEminar on Computer-aided Tolerancing, at Tempe, AZ on April 10-12. He presented two papers on Monte Carlo Simulation based Tolerance ANalysis for Production Planning and Tolerance Assignment using Genetic Algorithm.

During his visit to the west, Professor Rong visited UG Solution Development Center at Cypress, CA and met several friends. He also met with several former CAM Lab. members, Dr. H. Fu, Dr. Y. Zhang, Dr. X. Han, and Mr. Z. An.

Dr. Rong participated the DOE project focus group meeting at Wixon, MI on January 11, 2005. Before the meeting, on Janurary 10, he visited ESI at Bloomfield, MI and Ford at Dearborn, MI. Dr. Rong also met with former CAM-Lab. members, Jian Zhu, Weidong Ma, and Xingsen (Cory) Li.

Dr. Rong participated the semiannual meeting of the Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE) at Columbus, OH on November 3 and 4. He reported the project progress on Computer-ized Heat Treatment Planning System for Quenching and Tempering (CHT-q/t) as well as the status of applications of CHT-bf and CHT-cf developed in previous projects and the progress of the DOE project. The future work plan was discussed at the focus group meeting. Dr. Rong also met with former CAM-Lab member Cheng Bai and visited his company, IQ, at Columbus.

CAM-Lab participated in and had a booth at the Emergy Technology Center of the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS), the largest one in the world held in Chicago, IL, every the other year. Professor Rong, David and Darren, as well as Dr. Han and Dr. Zhang, were there to show have three techniques and systems displayed and attracted many people with nice discussions. The three techniques and systems are, Parametric Engineering for Manufacturing Systems (PEMS), Computer-aided Fixture Design and Verification, and Computerized Heat Treatment Planning. They also saw a lot of new development in machine tool technology and tooling technology. Professor Rong had meetings with industry leaders and academic professionals.

Dr. Kang, Amarjit and Yao visited American Heat Treating company on Tuesday, August 31, 2004. Particularly, the modeling of rotary furnaces was discussed. They were glad to see the effective use of CHT-bf and CHT-cf, the two packages developed by our research team, in the planning of daily production.

Professor Rong, Dr. Kang, Amarjit and Yao visited Can-Eng Furnaces, a major manufacturer of continuous furnaces, at Niagara Fall, ON, Canada, on Friday, August 27, 2004. They toured the manufacturing facility and research Lab., and discussed many technical issues of furnace modeling.

A team from CAM-Lab of WPI visited several companies for research collaboration during the week of August 8-13. Dr. Rong and Dr. Han gave a presentation/demonstration on production planning to the manufacturing group at Caterpillar research center on Monday, August 9. Dr. Kang, Amarjit, and Yao visited the heat treatment research group at Caterpillar on Monday, where they helped the summer intern student on modeling Caterpillar furnaces with CHT-bf and discussed technical problems. They are toured the production facilities of heat treatment at East Peoria. From Tuesday, August 10, Dr. Kang, Yao, and Amarjit visited Ipsen at Rockford, IL, AlFe at DeFiance, OH, Surface Combustion at Maumee, OH, Timken, Canton, and AlFe at Wadsworth, OH. They discussed the furnace modeling with furnace manufacturing experts, heat treatment processes with production engineers, and the research plan with our industrial focus group members. It was a very productive trip...

Professor Rong participated in the Japan-US Symposium of Flexible Automation at Denver, CO, July 19-20. He presented a paper, Automated Setup Planning, in the conference. The paper was nominated by reviewers as a finalist of the best paper award..

Dr. Rong attended the 2004 NSF Design, Service and Manufacturing Grantees and Research Conference at Dallas, TX in Jan. 5-8, 2004. He displyed a poster on Integrated Computer-aided Fixture Design in Manufacturing Planning and met with many friends and colleagues. Dr. Rong also met former member of CAM-Lab., Mr. Yao Gu and his family. Yao has worked in Dallas for 10 years after graduation from SIU with the MS degree in Manufacturing Systems.

Dr. Rong visited China from December 19, 2003 to January 1, 2004. He visited Tsinghua University, BUAA, CAXA, and NSF-China in Beijing, HIT and HUST in Harbin, and DIT in Dalian.

On December 21, Dr. Rong had a meeting with Professor Baichang Liu, Tianyou Huang, and Dr. Jinwu Kang at Tsinghua University, Beijing, to discuss the joint research on numerical modeling and simulation of casting/heat treatment processes. He also met Professor Qiang Chen and Professor Kulin Wang, the department administrators of Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua. Professor Wang visited WPIin 1999.

From December 22 - 27, Dr. Rong was lecturing to ME senior students in Harbin University of Science and Technology on Manufacturing Systems and Lean Manufacturing. He also visited Harbin Institute of technology and gave a seminar on Manufacturing and Manufacturing Research. Dr. Rong had a Christmas Dinner with his former advisor, Professor H.S. Tzou from University of Kentucky, who was also lecturing at HIT at that time, as well as Professor Lu and Professor Ren from HIT.

On December 29, Dr. Rong visted Dalian University of Technology and gave a seminar on Manufacturing Research at CAM-Lab. of WPI. He also met with President G. Cheng, VP D. Guo, Dean of ME Z. Jia, and Professor B. Zhao. Among them, Professors Cheng and Jia visited WPI last year and Professor Zhao worked with our CAM-Lab. for half year in 2002.

On December 30, Dr. Rong visited NSF-China and met with Professor Y. Lei and Professor Che in Beijing. On December 31, he met with Dr. Yi Lei, president of CAXA company and BUAA in the morning. In the afternoon, Dr. Rong met with Dr. Li Zheng, Head of Industrial Engineering, Professor B-P. Zhang, Professor K. Cheng and other colleagues at Institute of Manufacturing Engineering of Tsinghua University. All good discussions and enjoyable time.

Dr. Rong also spent some time with his former advior, Professor Y. Zhu and his family in Beijing, as well as Professor Z. Luo and X. Yu. Professor Zhu will visit us at WPI next month.

Dr. Rong participated the Industrial Advisory Committee meeting for an NSF project on Vertical and Horizontal Integration of Manufacturing Engineering Curriculum, as an academic partner at Kettering University at Flint, MI on December 15. Professor Lucy King is the Principal Investigator (PI). The meeting reviewed the progress of the NSF project with faculty presentation, student project demonstrations, Lab. tours, and a lot of discussions on the direction of the project and industrial participation in the roject. The meeting is very successful with 8 people from 6 companies plus Kettering administrators (President, VPs, and Director of Research Administration) and professors and students.

Dr. Rong attended ASME IMECE 2004 in Washington, DC and presented two papers. During this time, he also visited Temple University at Philadelphia, PA, NIST at Gaithersburg, MD, and AMT at McLean, VA.

Dr. Rong attended the semi-annual meting of the Center for Heat Treating Excellence (CHTE), WPI in Cincinnati, OH on October 29-30, 2003. In the meeting, Dr. Rong presented the current status of the software tool of compterized heat treatment planning system for batch furnace, CHT-bf, the progress on the software development of computerized heat treatment planning system for continuous furnace, CHT-cf, and the status of the DOE project on the integrated models of heat treatment of aluminum castings, which is a collaborative project with University of Connecticut. During the trip, Dr. Rong also visited University of Cincinnati for collaborative research and met with former CAM-Lab member, Mr. Yong Bai.

Dr. Rong was invited to attend a workshop on Knowledge Management for Design and Manufacturing, organized by Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative (IMTI) at Nashville, TN on October 6-8. The state of the art and future need of knowledge engineering application in design and manufacturing was intensively discussed. A formal documentation will be generated for recommendations of R&D initiatives. Details can be found at http://www.imti21.org/

Dr. Rong has made a two-week long trip from May 11 to 23, 2003. He had a busy schedule. He visited,

1. On May 11, Youngstown University, OH,
2. On May 12, Delphi at Sandusky, OH for collaborative research on Induction Hardening,
3. On May 13, Ford Research Lab. at Dearborn, MI, in the morning to give a seminar to the Manufacturing Department and discussed research collaboration on flexible assembly lines, and GM Research Center at Warren, MI, in the afternoon to discuss rsearch issues on production planning and fixture design,
4. On May 14, Ford Research Lab and Powertrain Operation at Dearborn, MI, in the morning for discussing the fixturing related projects, and the Wu's Research Center and NSF Engineering Research Center of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI, in the afternoon for a discussion of reconfigurable fixturing project,
5. On May 15, Kettering University at Flint, MI, in the morning for the Manufacturing Engineering curriculum innovation project, and Surface Combustion company at Mausee, OH, in the afternoon for discussing the heat treatment modeling project,
6. On May 16, University of Cincinnati in the morning to discuss the setup planning and tolerance analysis project, and Delphi Dayton Technical Center in the afternoon to discuss the application of the production planning systems developed at WPI,
7. On May 18, AxleShox company at Ann Arbor, MI to learn the new development of vibration absorbers,
8. On May 20, Canadean National Research Council (NRC) at London, ON, for discussions on research and technical transfer issues,
9. On May 21-22, North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC) at Hamilton, ON and presented a paper on Tolerance Analysis, and met many friends and colleagues, and
10. On May 23, GE Global Research Center at Niskayuna, NY, to give a seminar on Tolerance Analysis and Fixture Design.

Professor Rong was invited to give a workshop on Computer-aided Fixture Design at ASME National Manufacturing Week (NMW) held in Chicago, IL, March 3-7, 2003. He and Cheng Bai attended the NMW conference and show. They visited Bluco and Ipsen Companies in the area during the trip. Professor Rong and Cheng also met with former members of our CAM-Lab., Yong Bai, Yufeng Wu, and Jun Zhou. They had a good time together.

Dr. Rong participated 2003 NSF Design and Manufacturing Grantees' Conference at Birmingham, AL, from Jan. 5-8, 2003. He presented a poster, jointly with Professor Samual Huang at University of Cincinnati, on Integration of Setup Planning and Fixture Design. Dr. Rong met with NSF directors and many friends in the research community.

Dr. Rong participated the ATP meeting at Delphi site, Sandusky, OH, and presented the research progress on Modeling and Simulation of Induction Hardening Processes. He also visited Induction Tooling Company at N. Royalton, OH, for research discussions.

Dr. Rong participated an NSF panel meeting of research proposal review at Washington, DC.

In Summer 2002, Dr. Rong visited several universities. At Tsinghua University, he visited the newly established Department of Industrial Engineering and Department of Mechanical Enigneering. At Harbin University of Science and Technology, Dr. Rong was awarded an Excellent Alumni. An international collaborative project with Harbin University of Science and Technology was funded by NSF-China. Dr. Rong participated and presented a paper at the Fifth International Conference on Frontiers of Design and Manufacturing (ICFDM'2002) at Dalian, and visited Dalian University of Technology. At Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Dr. Rong explored further on establishing a joint Ph.D program between WPI and HUST and an exchange senior project program. On the way back, Dr. Rong participated and presented a paper at 2002 Japan-USA Symposium on Flexible Automation, Hiroshima, Japan.

Dr. Rong attended the North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC) at Purdue University on May 22. One paper was presented by co-author, Professor Samual Huang at University of Cincinnati. During the trip, Dr. Rong also visited Harley-Davidson at Wauwatosa, WI on May 20, Caterpillar at Peoria, IL on May 21, Delphi at Dayton, OH on May 23, and GE Aircraft Engines at Cincinnati, OH on May 24. He also had good times with former team members Tingting Yu, Jian Zhu and Yong Bai in the area.

On March 8, Dr. Rong participated the SAE 2002 World Congress in Detroit, MI. Former WPI student, Nick Amaral presented a paper, ¡°Development of a finite element analysis tool for fixture design integrity verification and optimization¡±, in the conference. After the conference, Dr. Rong visited Ford Science Lab., Ford Powertrain Operations, ITW, and Surface Combustion on Mar. 9 and 10. The research projects were discussed.

Dr. Rong and David Yang visited Sandusky Operations of Delphi Corporation for a presentation to the ATP team. Then David started a two-month work at Dayton, OH with Delphi. Dr. Xiangli Han visited Dayton and had a series of meetings of the research team at Delphi on May 8-10.

Dr. Rong and Dr. Kang visited Hauck Manufacturing Company at Lebanon, PA on March 1. The new development of the Computer-aided Heat Treatment Planning System (CAHTPS) was evaluated.

On Feb. 19, Dr. Rong visited the Tooling Service Division of Pratt & Whitney at East Hartford, CT. The MQP for next academic year was planned.

1. Bearing production facility of Delphi Automotive Systems at Sandusky, OH
2. Surface Combustion at Toledo, OH
3. Ford Research Laboratory at Dearborn, MI
4. Engineering Technical Center of Chassis Systems of Delphi at Dayton, OH
5. ITW Workholding Company at Ferndale, MI
6. The Timken Company at Canton, OH

Dr. Rong visited China in Summer 2001. He visited several universities (Tsinghua University, Harbin University of Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology), government agencies (NSF-China and Ministry of Science and Technology), and several manufacturing companies (First Automobile Group Corporation, Harbin Measuring and Cutting Tool Works, DongAn Airplane Manufacturing Company, Bergstrom China Group, and TIME Group Inc.). Dr. Rong introduced the manufacturing industry, research, and education in USA, and learn the development of society and technology in China. He was appointed as an adjunct professor of Mechanical Engineering at Dalian University of Technology in addition to 3 other similar positions he has held in China. Also a new collaborative project with Harbin University of Science and Technology was funded (renewed for another three years) by NSF-China.