Progress in Precision Engineering '91

Metal working companies in tool making, prototype manufacture and subcontract machining often use the label "precision engineering" to indicate that they are accustomed to working to finer tolerances than is normally expected in series production. But what we are concerned with in this and our preceding international conferences is much wider and deeper than this. Precision engineering is a grouping of multidisciplinary scientific and engineering skills and techniques, firmly based on dimensional metrology, by which a wide range of new advanced techlology products is made possible. In the last 5-10 years we have witnessed dramatic progress in precision engineering, particularly by the rapid development of its important sub-sets, micro-engineering and nanotechnology.