This volume contains the edited version of the technical presentations of PROLMAT 2006, the IFIP TC5 international conference held on June 15-17, 2006 at the Shanghai University in China. The main theme of this conference is Knowledge Enterprise – Intelligent Strategies in Product Design, Manufacturing and Management. These proceedings focus on the issue of how to translate data and information into knowledge in manufacturing enterprises. These papers, authored by experts from around the world, aim to bridge the gap between academic research and the implementation of information technology in industry. They cover a wide range of applications, including theory, architecture, methodology, implementation, and case study.

Special topics include: Knowledge Discovery and Management in Manufacturing Manufacturing Business Intelligence and Data Mining Product Life Cycles Production Management Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Kesheng Wang is a professor and director of the Knowledge Discovery Laboratory at the Department of Production and Quality Engineering, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. He is the author of more than 130 papers referred to in international journals and conferences, and also the author of 13 books. His current areas of interest are Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, Applied Computational Intelligence, Business Intelligence, Data Mining and Knowledge Management. George L. Kovacs is a professor and head of the CIM Research Laboratory at the Computer and Automation Institute and Technical University of Budapest, Hungary. His research interests include CAD/CAM/CIM, Intelligent Manufacturing, and Virtual Enterprises. Michael J.

Wozny is a professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA. Minglun Fang is a professor and head of Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mechanical Automation and Robotics at Shanghai University. For more information about the 300 other books in the IFIP series, please visit www.springer.com. For more information about IFIP, please visit www.ifip.org.