ABSTRACT
The economy of a nation is strongly driven by the growth of its manufacturing industry. Manufacturing is a value-added activity that involves the processing of raw materials into either semi-finished or finished products. In order to transform materials to products, a manufacturing process makes use of machine tools and other related equipment and their accessories and tooling with the aid of labor and utilities (water, electricity, fuel, etc.). An engineering manufacturing process involves the (design and) manufacture of a product (or its part) by transforming raw materials or semi-finished materials into the product. Although product design is not essentially a job of manufacturing engineers, the design activity must involve the teamwork of design, marketing, manufacturing, quality, and cost control engineers. The subject matter presented in this book focuses on quantitative techniques in engineering manufacturing processes and technologies. This chapter first introduces the manufacturing model and then explains the various groups and types of manufacturing processes. Finally, the importance of mathematical modeling and problem-solving is explained.
