The main obstacle restricting manufacturing industry in China from being stronger is such not good enough products’ quality. One of the main issues that cause the low product quality is its relatively low reliability. Thus, based on the analysis on the mechanism of product reliability, we claim that reliability design should be incorporated at the very beginning of product design. In order to improve the efficiency of product design and to release the new products to the market more quickly, we propose a framework of coordinated reliability design supported by the information technology to gain the competitive advantages.

Since the reform and opening-up was carried out in 1978, a comprehensive and competitive modern industrial system has been set up in China, which plays a vital role in the world. Persisting in reform and opening-up, keeping the social and economic environments stable, building the comprehensive public infrastructure, encouraging the initiative of the local governments, and strengthen the innovation and technology progress contribute a lot to the achievements of manufacturing in China. Meanwhile, there are still some obstacles to restricting the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing from institution, mechanism, and policies in China.

Manufacturing plays a vital role in a country. This article explains the reality of China’s manufacturing industry which is “large but not strong”, refers to the domestic and foreign manufacturing industry evaluation system research experience, defined the connotation and characteristics of manufacturing power, established a comprehensive evaluation system which included 4 first-class indexes and 18 secondary-class indexes, and take this as the foundation. This article has carried on the preliminary analysis between China and several other countries.

By comparing and referring the experiences how the four major core elements (first-class indexes) improved manufacturing industry in industrial developed countries. This article analyzed the gap between China and other countries, explored the common regularities how to realize manufacturing power, and estimated the speed and the target to be a strong country in manufacturing industry. This article proposed policy suggestions based on the analysis of 18 secondary-class indexes.

Based on the Hallak Product Quality model, we construct an empirical product quality model adopting unit value, distance between countries, income per capita. This research measures Chinese, Indian and Brazilian manufacturing quality of HS6 products that export to the U.S., from 2003 to 2013. And we put forward policy recommendations to improve China’s product quality upgrading ability in the international market.

This article mainly discussed the historical development tendency of 18 secondary-indexes of manufacturing power, and summarized the characteristics of them in different periods in the early, middle, late industrialized and post-industrial countries.

The tools of synthetic biology can be used to engineer living biosensors that report the presence of analytes. Although these engineered cellular biosensors have many potential applications for deployment outside of the lab, they are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and are often considered dangerous. Mitigating the risk of releasing GMOs into the environment while enabling their use outside a laboratory is critical. Here, we describe the development of a biosensing system consisting of a synthetic biological circuit, which is engineered in Escherichia coli that are contained within a unique 3D-printed device housing. These GMOs detect the chemical quorum signal of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an opportunistic pathogen. Using this device, the living biosensor makes contact with a specimen of interest without ever being exposed to the environment. Cells can be visually analyzed in the field within culture tubes, or returned to the lab for further analysis. Many biosensors lack the versatility required for deployment in the field, where many diseases can go undiagnosed due to a lack of resources and equipment. Our bioassay device utilizes 3D printing to create a portable, modular, and inexpensive device for the field deployment of living biosensors.

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, such as selective laser sintering (SLS) and fused deposition modeling (FDM), have become the powerful tools for direct manufacturing of complex parts. This breakthrough in manufacturing technology makes the fabrication of new geometrical features and multiple materials possible. Past researches on designs and design methods often focused on how to obtain desired functional performance of the structures or parts, specific manufacturing capabilities as well as manufacturing constraints of AM were neglected. However, the inherent constraints in AM processes should be taken into account in design process. In this paper, the enclosed voids, one type of manufacturing constraints of AM, are investigated. In mathematics, enclosed voids restriction expressed as the solid structure is simply-connected. We propose an equivalent description of simply-connected constraint for avoiding enclosed voids in structures, named as virtual temperature method (VTM). In this method, suppose that the voids in structure are filled with a virtual heating material with high heat conductivity and solid areas are filled with another virtual material with low heat conductivity. Once the enclosed voids exist in structure, the maximum temperature value of structure will be very high. Based upon this method, the simply-connected constraint is equivalent to maximum temperature constraint. And this method can be easily used to formulate the simply-connected constraint in topology optimization. The effectiveness of this description method is illustrated by several examples. Based upon topology optimization, an example of 3D cantilever beam is used to illustrate the trade-off between manufacturability and functionality. Moreover, the three optimized structures are fabricated by FDM technology to indicate further the necessity of considering the simply-connected constraint in design phase for AM.

Direct-write additive manufacturing refers to a rich and growing repertoire of well-established fabrication techniques that builds solid objects directly from computer-generated solid models without elaborate intermediate fabrication steps. At the macroscale, direct-write techniques such as stereolithography, selective laser sintering, fused deposition modeling ink-jet printing, and laminated object manufacturing have significantly reduced concept-to-product lead time, enabled complex geometries, and importantly, has led to the renaissance in fabrication known as the . The technological premises of all direct-write additive manufacturing are identical—converting computer generated three-dimensional models into layers of two-dimensional planes or slices, which are then reconstructed sequentially into three-dimensional solid objects in a layer-by-layer format. The key differences between the various additive manufacturing techniques are the means of creating the finished layers and the ancillary processes that accompany them. While still at its infancy, direct-write additive manufacturing techniques at the microscale have the potential to significantly lower the barrier-of-entry—in terms of cost, time and training—for the prototyping and fabrication of MEMS parts that have larger dimensions, high aspect ratios, and complex shapes. In recent years, significant advancements in materials chemistry, laser technology, heat and fluid modeling, and control systems have enabled additive manufacturing to achieve higher resolutions at the micrometer and nanometer length scales to be a viable technology for MEMS fabrication. Compared to traditional MEMS processes that rely heavily on expensive equipment and time-consuming steps, direct-write additive manufacturing techniques allow for rapid design-to-prototype realization by limiting or circumventing the need for cleanrooms, photolithography and extensive training. With current direct-write additive manufacturing technologies, it is possible to fabricate unsophisticated micrometer scale structures at adequate resolutions and precisions using materials that range from polymers, metals, ceramics, to composites. In both academia and industry, direct-write additive manufacturing offers extraordinary promises to revolutionize research and development in microfabrication and MEMS technologies. Importantly, direct-write additive manufacturing could appreciably augment current MEMS fabrication technologies, enable faster design-to-product cycle, empower new paradigms in MEMS designs, and critically, encourage wider participation in MEMS research at institutions or for individuals with limited or no access to cleanroom facilities. This article aims to provide a limited review of the current landscape of direct-write additive manufacturing techniques that are potentially applicable for MEMS microfabrication.

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology has been researched and developed for more than 20 years. Rather than removing materials, AM processes make three-dimensional parts directly from CAD models by adding materials layer by layer, offering the beneficial ability to build parts with geometric and material complexities that could not be produced by subtractive manufacturing processes. Through intensive research over the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the development and commercialization of new and innovative AM processes, as well as numerous practical applications in aerospace, automotive, biomedical, energy and other fields. This paper reviews the main processes, materials and applications of the current AM technology and presents future research needs for this technology.