ABSTRACT
The survival and growth of most industries today are strongly dependent on the design and optimization of the relevant systems. With the advent of many new materials, such as composites and ceramics, and new manufacturing processes, several classical industries, such as the steel industry, have diminished in importance in the recent years, while many new fields have emerged. It is important to keep abreast of changing trends in these areas and to use new techniques for product improvement and cost reduction. Even in an expanding engineering area, such as consumer electronics, the prosperity of a given company is closely linked with the design and optimization of new processes and systems and optimization of existing ones. Consequently, the subject of design, which had always been important, has become increasingly critical in today’s world and has also become closely coupled with optimization.
