Shortly after we almost simultaneously moved to our current academic positions in the Delft University of Technology and the National Technical University of Athens respectively, and finding ourselves both engaged in very similar ways in the field of engineering design, we resolved to undertake, next to our longstanding scientific research collaboration dating back to our PhD studies at the National Technical University of Athens, also some joint dissemination efforts to bring our industrial and academic networks and institutions closer together and instigate a valuable cross-talk at a European level. Case Studies in Advanced Engineering Design (CSiAED), first the symposium and now this book, have been fruits of this.

After the symposium, the first in an envisioned series, we were fortunate to have Dr. Rajabalinejad, a new assistant professor in Christos' team, join our editorial effort and help with an otherwise unwieldy process of collecting and laying out materials. Without him we would, no doubt, still be looking helplessly at these same materials.

During this time, we also joined our forces with those of other enthusiastic peers in European academia and founded the European Academic Network of Product Engineering (EAN-PE), promising to take our joint research and dissemination efforts even further.

With the 2^nd CSiAED now about to take place in Athens 2 1/2 years after the 1^st, the present book therefore arrives at a time when the vision behind it has consolidated much more and it looks like a critical mass has been reached.

At the same time, we must not fail to acknowledge those who, in the fledgling beginnings of CSiAED, contributed with their inspiration, ideas, support and work:

We would like to extend our gratitude towards Prof. Dr. Cees de Bont, Prof. Dr. Michel van Tooren and Prof. Dr. Tetsuo Tomiyama of the Delft University of Technology and members of the Platform Delft Design & Engineering for their strong support and contribution to the original symposium, and towards Prof. Karel Luyben, Rector Magnificus, also for his kind support.

From the Product Engineering team organising the event special mention is due to the many efforts and good initiative of Mr. Marco Bolleboom, Project Support Officer. Initial transcriptions of some of the audio recordings were executed by Mr. Nikolaos Kazazakis and Mr. Amin Amani, lecturers and PhD candidates.

Lastly, and most of all, the editors would like to extend their grateful acknowledgement of the substantial effort, time, investment and enthusiasm from all the invited speakers and authors and their respective organisations, who eagerly helped make the CSiAED symposium a reality and without whom this unique account of proceedings could never have existed.

May 2013

Christos Spitas

Vasilios Spitas