Collected here are 112 papers concerned with all manner of new directions in manufacturing systems given at the 41^st CIRP Conference on Manufacturing Systems. The high-quality material presented in this volume includes reports of work from both scientific and engineering standpoints and several invited and keynote papers addressing the current cutting edge and likely future trends in manufacturing systems. The book’s subjects include: (1) new trends in manufacturing systems design: sustainable design, ubiquitous manufacturing, emergent synthesis, service engineering, value creation, cost engineering, human and social aspects of manufacturing, etc.; (2) new applications for manufacturing systems – medical, life-science, optics, NEMS, etc.; (3) intelligent use of advanced methods and new materials – new manufacturing process technologies, high-hardness materials, bio-medical materials, etc.; (4) integration and control for new machines – compound machine tools, rapid prototyping, printing process integration, etc.