Preface
On behalf of the 4M Association it is our pleasure to welcome you all to France for the 4M 2010 conference. This year the conference takes place in two locations. Firstly, the delegates will enjoy the best the region has to offer in the historic and beautiful town of Bourg en Bresse. This will be followed by a “sponsors” day at the Pôle Européen de Plasturgie (PEP) situated in Oyonnax at the heart of the “Plastics Valley”, home to many industrialists who are at the forefront of this very competitive manufacturing industry. Our thanks go to PEP for hosting this “sponsors day” and to Plastipolis for playing a key role in its organisation and in encouraging so many sponsors to participate.
The PEP is a unique research, development and technical support facility dedicated to the plastics industry. Created in 1989, by and for industrialists, it is an ever-present partner in the development of the industry. Plastipolis is the only competitiveness cluster for plastics engineering in France. It brings together all stakeholders in the sector (companies, R&D centres, training centres, institutional investors) in the Rhône-Alpes and Franche-Comté regions, promoting the expertise of French plastics engineering companies on a European and international level.
Each day of the conference begins with two keynote talks, delivered by recognised figures in the field of micro-manufacturing research, followed by sessions based upon the conference themes of manufacturing technologies, routes and processes. 4M 2010 will once again incorporate a number of invited sessions, organised by EC-funded FP7 projects that can trace their origins back to the 4M Network of Excellence (www.4m-net.org). MultiLayer, COTECH, EUMINAfab and FlexPAET will all host sessions that will not only disseminate their findings to date but will also hopefully prompt new ideas and inter-disciplinary discussions with those outside the projects. Other newly approved projects will also be introduced to the 4M audience – IMPRESS, MultiPlat and MINAM 2.0.
This varied and cross-cutting programme reflects perfectly what the 4M Association aims to do – to bring together researchers and industrialists alike, working in the field of micro-manufacture, to act as a forum and meeting place for the community and to ensure that the multi-disciplinarity that is considered so vital for success in the industry is facilitated. The 4M Association is a membership based organisation (www.4m-association.org), set up by former members of the 4M Network of Excellence, to develop further the links and contacts established amongst the members of the Network, and to grow the community by opening up membership to all.
We would like to thank those at Plastipolis who have taken responsibility for the local organisation and logistics, without whose help the conference would have not been possible to organise.
Finally, and most importantly, we would like to thank all authors, speakers and the Conference Committee for their participation in the review process, without which it would have been impossible to implement a policy of full peer review for all papers prior to acceptance for presentation at the conference.
| Bertrand Fillon CEA Conference Chairman |
Chantal Khan-Malek CNRS, FEMTO-ST Institute Conference Co-Chair |
Stefan Dimov Cardiff University Conference Co-Chair |