【正文】 size the role of process understanding and control .This mechatronic approach is currently speeding up the alreadyrapid Japanese process for trasforming ideas into products . Currently ,mechatronics describes the Japanese practice of useing fully intefrated teams of product designers ,manufactring, purchasing, and marketing personnel acting in concert with each other to design both the product and the manufacturing syestem. The Japanese recognized that the future in producdtion innovation would belong to those who learned how to optimize the marriage beween eletronic and mechanical realized,in particular ,that the need for this optimizatong would be most intense in application of advanced manufacturing and production systems where artificial intelligence ,expert systems ,smart robots, and advanced manufacturing technology systems would create the next generation of tools to be used in the factory of the future. From the very beginnings of recorded time ,mechanical systems have found their way into every aspect of our society .Our simplest mechanisms ,such as gears ,pulleys, springs,and wheeles. have provided the basis for our tools .Our electronics technology,on the other hand ,is pletely twentiethcentury ,all of it created within the past 75 years. Until now ,electronics were included to enhance mechanical systems39。 performance ,but the emphasis remained on the mechanical product .There had never been any master plan on how the integration would be done .In the past ,it had been done on a case bycase basis .More recently ,however,because of the overwhelming advances in the world of electronics and its capability to physically simplify mechanical configurations ,the technical munity began to reassess the marriage between these two disciplines. The most obvious trend in the direction of mechatronic innovation can be observed in the automobile industry .There was atime when a car was primarily a mechanical marvel with a few electronic appendages. First came the starter motor ,and then the generator ,each making the original product a bit better than it was before .Then came solidstate electronics,and suddenly the mechanical marvel became an electromechanical marvel .Today39。s manufacturing industries. TO clese the gap ,we will need to go much further than creating new tools .If we accept the fact that mechanical systems optimally coupled with eletronics ponents will be the wave of the future ,then we must also understand that the pipple effect will be felt all the way back to the university,where we now keep the two disciplines of mechanics and eletronics separated and allow them to meet only in occasional overview sessions .New curricula must be create fir a new hybrid engineer a mechatronics engineer .Only then can we be assured that future generations of product designers and manufactuiing engineers will full seek excellence in these new techniques. We need to rethink our present day approach of separating our engineering staffs both and from each other and from the producting engineers .Living together and municating individual knowledge will be the key to optimum designs and new product development . The definition of mechatronics is much more significant than its bined words imply . It can physically turn engineering and manufacturing upside down. It will change the way we design and produce the next generating of high technology nation that fully implements the rediments of mechatronics and vigorousely pursues it will lead the word to a new generation of technology innovation with all its profound implications. Of Mechatronics Mechatronics may sound like utopia to many product and manufacturing managers it is often presented as the solution to nearly all of the problems in manufacturing . In particular ,it promises to increase productivity i