ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF

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                  ENGINEERING NEWS IN BRIEF
                        E-Mail Newsletter

                               No.19
             Issued by the Asian TOP Panel, July 2003

           The Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society (CMES)
           The Institution of Engineers, Indonesia (PII)
           The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME)
           The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers (KSME)

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About the Asian TOP Panel (ATOP)
    On August 29, 2001, presidents of four engineering societies gathered　
in Japan to pave the way for stepped-up collaboration. They are Chinese
Mechanical Engineering Society, Institution of Engineers Indonesia,
Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Korean Society of Mechanical
Engineers.
    They agreed to establish the Asian TOP Panel (ATOP), which is a　
voluntary body and open to any Asian engineering society and
institution. At the first meeting, they decided to issue monthly E-mail
newsletter which you are reading now. It will carry short technical news
of Asian countries, and be distributed to all individual members of the
ATOP societies and institutions.
    ATOP will meet every two years. The next meeting will be held in
Korea in 2003.

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[Contents]

(1) China Became Largest Importer of German Large-scale Machinery
    (Source : CMES)
(2) Incinerator Project under Way (Source : CMES)
(3) Equipment Manufacturing Expo Planned (Source : CMES)
(4) China Sees Increase in IT Application to Manufacturing (Source : CMES)
(5) Development of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell for Portable PCs (Source : JSME)
(6) DFX Methodology (Source : JSME)

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(1) China Became Largest Importer of German Large-scale Machinery
    (Source : CMES)

According to the Working Group of Large-scale Machinery Manufacturers
under the German Association of Machinery Manufacturers, China became
the largest importer of German large-scale machinery in 2002. Orders
for large-scale machinery placed by China valued EUR1.4 billion, an
increase of 8 per cent, accounting for nearly 12 per cent of the total
value of Germany's export orders for large-scale machinery in the
whole year. As China's state investment covers a wide range, and
foreign direct investment in the country is enlarging scale, it is
still promising for German enterprises to receive orders from China.

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(2) Incinerator Project under Way (Source : CMES)

A gigantic incinerator manufacturing base, reportedly the largest in
the country, is to be completed within the year in Changzhou in East
China's Jiangsu Province.
Located in Changzhou State Environmental Protection Industry Park,
the 6.7-hectare plant, which comprises the latest Japanese technology,
will produce various types of incinerators with daily rubbish
processing capacities varying between 30 to 450 tons, according to the
publicity authority with the park.
JFE Holdings Inc, Japan's leading steel industry group which occupies
around 40 per cent of the Japanese incinerator market, has signed an
agreement to join the project by exporting a complete set of
incinerator manufacturing technologies.
This largest incinerator design and manufacturing base in the country
will meet the country's increasing demand for urban solid waste
processing equipment.
Changzhou Lucky Environmental Protection Equipment Engineering Co Ltd,
a Hong Kong-Changzhou joint venture, which is the main investor of the
project, has poured an initial 10 million yuan (US1.2 million) into
the plant. The project will fill the gap in China's production of
large-scale incinerators which can be used in cities like Beijing and
Shanghai. The price will be cut by about a half, compared with
imported equipment, he added.
Currently, most of the country's operating rubbish incineration
facilities, especially large-scale ones, are imported, according to
Chen. Domestic businesses can only produce incinerators with a daily
rubbish capability of 100 tons or less.
Landfill, incineration and compost are the three major household waste
disposal methods.
Of the three, landfill is the most popular in China, with more than
85 per cent of the country's household waste buried in rubbish plants
after being treated.
To save the urban space, some big cities like Shanghai, Beijing,
Ningbo, Zhuhai and Shenzhen have also built a few incinerators which
generate electricity from processed waste. But most of that type of
equipment is imported from Japan, the United States and Europe.

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(3) Pearl River Delta to be Trading Center of Machinery (Source : CMES)

Manufacturing industry in South China would change its trading form
from conventional dispersed bazaars to professional, collective and
integrative machinery transaction platform. Shunlian International
Machinery City would be completed and to start business in Oct. That
would make it possible for Pearl River Delta to be a trading center
of machinery in South China.

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(4) China Sees Increase in IT Application to Manufacturing
    (Source : CMES)

The application of information technology to China's manufacturing rose
18 percent in 2002, according to a survey released here Wednesday.
The National Information Evaluation Center (NIEC) released the report
after completing a statistical assessment of how China's manufacturing
applied information technology.
It was the first time the Chinese government has undertaken a major
project on the application of information technology and made public
the result.
The survey showed that the use of information technology in
manufacturing rose from an index level of 100 in 2001 to 118.21 in2002.
More enterprises began to designate specific personnel in charge of the
application of information technology while the average investment each
enterprise made in this respect increased to 2.194 million yuan
(265,000 US dollars) in 2002 from 1,779 million yuan
(215,000 US dollars) in 2001.
The index was set up by NIEC to specifically assess the application of
information technology to China's manufacturing.

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(5) Development of Direct Methanol Fuel Cell for Portable PCs
    (Source : JSME)

    Nobutaka KIKUIRI
    TOSHIBA Corporation
    Mechanical Systems Laboratory
    Corporate Research & Development Center

Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) has been developed for Portable PCs.
This connects directly to a PC or other portable device in the same
way as an extended lithium-ion battery, and removes the need for
proximity to a main power supply to assure long operating times. The
new fuel cell currently realizes average output of 12W and maximum
output of 17W, and achieves approximately five hours of operation on
a single methanol 50 cc cartridge.
Methanol in a fuel cell delivers power most efficiently when it is
mixed with water in a 3 -5% methanol concentration. But dilution
solution doesn't have enough energy compared with high concentration
of methanol. Therefore, concentration control system has been
developed. This allows a higher concentration of methanol to be
diluted to 5% by the water produced as a by-product of the power
generation process.

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(6) DFX Methodology (Source : JSME)

    Kikuo Fujita
    Department of Computer-Controlled Mechanical Systems
    Graduate School of Engineering
    Osaka University

DFX is the abbreviation of `design for X'. X means any of quality,
cost, manufacturing, assembly, service, environment, etc. Since they
are ordinary issues to be considered in design, there must be an
important reason why a unified term `X' is used. The design process
is composed of several phases. Early ones are vague but have much
freedom. Later ones are precise but restrictive for refinement. This
means that decisions in the early phases are essential to accomplish
the globally superior designs. Various DFX methods and tools are
expected to ensure them. Beyond such benefit, they should be unitized
as an integrated methodology not only for improving individual issues
but also for identifying the design objective that must be intensively
considered in the succeeding phases under the various types of
restrictions. This kind of concepts has been revealed under the trend
of concurrent engineering, in which the integration of design and
production is representative. Its overall framework may generate new
DFX methods and tools to meet with the changes of manufacturing
practice. The considerations onto product family and product platform
are typical of such new development.

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Editor: Chisachi Kato, International Affairs Committee
Published by The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Shinanomachi-Rengakan Bldg, Shinanomachi 35,
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0016, Japan

FAX : 81-3-5360-3508
All Rights Reserved, Copyright C 2003
The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
URL:http//www.jsme.or.jp/English/