A UWindsor doctoral student will learn sometime this month if he has been named the winner of an international award that recognizes up-and-coming engineers.~
Ahmed Azab is one of three finalists for the CIRP Taylor Medal. Named after management science theorist Fred W. Taylor, the award is handed out annually by the Paris-based College International pour la Recherche en Productique (CIRP)—the International Academy for Production Engineering—to recognize young researchers for their innovative research, new and significant results, academic qualifications and potential. The other finalists hail from Spain and Japan.
Azab, who will defend his PhD this spring, was nominated for his innovative research and a paper on "Reconfigurable Process Planning" he co-authored with Hoda ElMaraghy, professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering and director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Centre.
The paper was published in the 2007 CIRP Annals and presented in Dresden, Germany, last year. He developed an innovative manufacturing process planning method, metaphorically based on genetic manipulation, for planning manufacturing systems that can address frequent changes in product design without making major and often costly changes to the system.
“Everybody wants the agility to get new products to market faster,” Azab said. “They want to maximize the change while minimizing the change in the process.”
Many of the award’s previous winners have gone on to enjoy great success in their field, said Dr. ElMaraghy, one of only 10 CIRP fellows from Canada and the first woman ever elected to the position.
After completing his doctorate, Azab plans to continue his research with industry partners into the process planning of reconfigurable manufacturing systems.
“I fully expect he will make excellent contributions in the future,” ElMaraghy said. “To be recognized in this way is just an amazing step.”
Engineering student Ahmed Azab (right) with faculty advisor Hoda ElMaraghy. Azab is a finalist for an international research award.
News story courtesy of University of Windsor Daily News