To meet and adapt to the current and future trends and issues in technology and society, the science committee of The German Academic Society for Production Engineering (WGP) continues to define future topics for production technology.

These themes represent not only the key focus for the scientific work of the WGP, but also the central themes of the first annual conference in June 2011, whose paper is publically available in this volume. Such themes, including electric mobility, medical technology, lightweight construction, and resource efficiency, as well as mass production ability...