Dr. Ahmed Azab is a member of the ASME Manufacturing Engineering Division’s Manufacturing Systems Technical Committee. In that role he has organized and chaired symposia at the ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC). Since 2023 the lab’s main refereed venue has been the SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), with papers published in Manufacturing Letters. He has also chaired NAMRC manufacturing-systems sessions.
Full citations are on the Publications page.
SME North American Manufacturing Research Conference
NAMRC 54, 2026
State College, Pennsylvania, 14-18 June 2026. Dr. Azab chaired a manufacturing-systems session.
The lab presented four papers, all published in Manufacturing Letters: a graph-transformer encoder for CAPP-GPT; proximity metrics for stock design in hybrid manufacturing; energy-aware flexible job-shop scheduling with speed scaling; and a cooperative metaheuristic for the flexible job shop, with the search parameters tuned by reinforcement learning.
NAMRC 53, 2025
Clemson University, Greenville, South Carolina, 23-27 June 2025. Dr. Azab chaired a manufacturing-systems session.
Papers from the lab covered digital-twin scheduling with smart material handling, stock design by constrained clustering, and product-platform design with multi-period lot sizing under fuzzy demand.
NAMRC 52, 2024
Knoxville, Tennessee, 17-22 June 2024. Dr. Azab chaired two manufacturing-systems sessions.
Papers from the lab included the first CAPP-GPT framework, batch sizing and machinability data for milling, a hybrid deep-learning and evolutionary method for inverse kinematics, and mass customization by hybrid manufacturing and smart assembly.
NAMRC 51, 2023
New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Papers from the lab included an improved multi-level capacitated lot-sizing model with setup carryover and emission control, a review of automated process planning and dynamic scheduling, and multi-period, multi-platform lot sizing for hybrid manufacturing under stochastic demand.Invited talks
2026
“Logical support functions of Industry 4.0: A Digital Twinning and LLM Approach.” Invited keynote, 3rd GCC International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Operations Management, University of Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, 2-4 February 2026.
2022
“Production and Operations Management for Smart Manufacturing Systems.” Invited keynote, First Conference on Technological University Education, Delta Technological University, Cairo.
2020
“Strategizing for Smart Manufacturing: A Canadian Perspective.” Invited talk, with Dr. Fazle Baki, 2020 APEC SMEs Smart Factory Forum, Republic of Korea.
ASME Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference
2022
Purdue University, 27 June-1 July 2022.
Symposium: “Maximizing the Competitive Edge in Changeable Manufacturing Systems and Transformable Factories.”
Organizers:
- Dr. Ahmed Azab, University of Windsor
- Dr. Mohamed Gadalla, Alabama A&M University
- Dr. Asif Khan, FCA
2021
Virtual meeting, hosted by the University of Cincinnati, 21-25 June 2021.
Symposium: “Changeable, Transformable Manufacturing and Distributed Green Supply Chains in Pandemic Recovery Efforts.”
Organizers:
- Dr. Ahmed Azab, University of Windsor
- Dr. Mohamed Gadalla, Alabama A&M University
- Mr. Asif Khan, FCA
Dr. Azab also chaired a manufacturing-systems session and served as a judge for the best-poster awards.
Selected paper: Salimpour, S., & Azab, A. (2021). A Dynamic Programming Approach to Solve the Facility Layout Problem for Reconfigurable Manufacturing. https://doi.org/10.1115/MSEC2021-60408
2020
Virtual meeting, University of Cincinnati.
Dr. Azab co-chaired the symposium “Advances in Competitive Manufacturing Engineering.”
2019
Penn State University.
Dr. Azab co-chaired the symposium “Competitive Manufacturing Engineering,” in the area Advances in Competitive Manufacturing Engineering.
2016
Virginia Tech, 27 June-1 July 2016.
Symposium: “Competitive Manufacturing Engineering.”
Organizers:
- Dr. Mohamed A. Gadalla, Alabama A&M University
- Mr. Ahmed Soliman, Benchmark Electronics
- Dr. Ahmed Azab, University of Windsor
- Dr. S. P. Kallurkar, Atharva College of Engineering
2015
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 8-12 June 2015.
Selected paper: Allahyari, M. Z., & Azab, A. (2015). Improved Bi-level Mathematical Programming and Heuristics for Cellular Manufacturing Facility Layout Problem. https://doi.org/10.1115/MSEC2015-9273
Other service
Dr. Azab was a member of the international scientific committee for the 10th International Conference on Changeable, Agile, Reconfigurable and Virtual Production (CARV 2025), Siegen, Germany, 9-12 September 2025. He chaired a session at CARV 2011 in Montreal.