1996 Volume 44 Issue 5 Pages 58-62
I experienced a lecturer at three universities including Tokyo University for senior students who majors in material science engineering or metal engineering in 1995. The topic of my lecture is Works of materials engineers in product development for late of 1990s. What I wanted to stress mostly in the lecture was that an R&D attitute taking into consideration of useris view point would be crucial for engineers who want to develop new materials supporting new products for late of 1990s. A stress point for materials development in 1990s is different from that in 1980s. In my presentation of the main topic, I gave information on how new materials would be applied for commercial products through a variety of process stages. With concrete case studies, I claimed that the following items would be required to develop materials applications, which include selection of a target product and mechanism, achievement of high performance and low cost to meet users specifications, and solutions for tough competition of new materials and mechanism by subsequent emerging competitors. To make the students to give an experience of engineers, I demonstrated as many application products or their photos as possible.