ME Manufacturing Sets the Pace with Awards
Two ME professors have earned prestigious awards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for their paradigm-shifting work in the field of manufacturing engineering. Professor Yoram Koren earned the M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal. Professor Jyotirmoy Mazumder earned ASME's 2006 William T. Ennor Manufacturing Technology Award.
Yoram Koren
Koren, who directs the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems (ERC-RMS) at the University of Michigan, received the award for his outstanding contributions to the science, education and practice of manufacturing through innovations in reconfigurable manufacturing systems, robotics and manufacturing system control, and for establishing reconfigurable manufacturing as a worldwide scientific discipline.
The M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing award was established by ASME in 1986 to honor M. Eugene Merchant, an engineer who developed mathematical models for metal-cutting that had significant impact on manufacturing. Other work Merchant did led to the development of CAD, CAM and other manufacturing-related software. The award is bestowed by ASME upon an individual of significant influence and responsibility, who has improved productivity and efficiency--through research or implementation of research--of manufacturing operations.
Like Merchant, Koren is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Koren founded the ERC-RMS in 1996 and led its team of 100 researchers who hail from both academia and industry to create a new generation of reconfigurable manufacturing machines and systems. His work allows manufacturers to improve productivity and product quality, thereby cost-effectively facilitating the changes demanded by increased competition and globalization.
Koren teaches a course on global manufacturing, which uses a draft of his new textbook, The Global Manufacturing Revolution. He holds 13 U.S. patents in the areas of manufacturing and robotics.
Jyoti Mazumder
Mazumder, founding director of the U-M Center for Lasers and Plasmas for Advanced Manufacturing, holds the Robert H. Lurie Professorship in Engineering. He was recognized for "pioneering leadership in the commercialization of laser-aided manufacturing, including the closed loop direct metal deposition process through which functional components can be made directly from the computer-aided design rendering."
The Ennor award is bestowed upon individuals who contribute significantly to an innovative manufacturing technology that results in substantial economic and societal benefit. It was established by ASME in 1990 with the Alcoa Company.
Mazumder, who is a professor of both mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering, is credited with the commercialization of laser-aided manufacturing. He is known as a visionary and has built of one of the world's most prominent university groups in laser materials processing. His early work on the measurement and modeling of laser welding ushered in quantitative approaches for laser-aided manufacturing, and his early research on spectroscopic diagnostics of plasma associated with laser-aided manufacturing led to the development of sensors and resulting improvements in process reliability.
The closed loop direct metal deposition (DMD) process that Mazumder invented has changed the way patient-specific bone tissue is grown; bio-mimetic scaffolds are made with DMD and genes are inserted in the scaffold to rapidly grow the tissue.
Mazumder is a fellow of the Laser Institute of America and the American Society of Metals. He won the Arthur Schawlow Award from Laser Institute of America in 2003.
Professor Koren was a 1999 recipient of the Ennor award. Previous ME winners of the Merchant award included Associate Professor Suman Das and former Assistant Research Scientist Muammer Koç, both in 2004.
