American Society for Precision Engineering
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The American Society for Precision Engineering is a non-profit member association, founded in 1986, dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and technology of precision engineering, to promote its dissemination through education and training, and its use by science and industry.
Overview
The American Society for Precision Engineering (ASPE) focuses on many areas that are important in the research, design, development, manufacture and measurement of high accuracy components and systems. This collective discipline is known as Precision engineering, and includes precision controls, metrology, interferometry, materials, materials processing, nanotechnology, optical fabrication, precision optics, precision replication, scanning microscopes, semiconductor processing, standards and ultra-precision machining.
History
There has long been a "community" of precision engineers within the United States but a formal structure and common focus for the activities was lacking. This was not the case in Japan, as evidenced by the large and active Japanese Society of Precision Engineers. In November 1985, a joint US-Japanese meeting on precision engineering included a special session to discuss the possibility of forming an American Society. The enthusiasm of the participants and the overwhelming response to a subsequent questionnaire provided momentum. By November 1986, the American Society for Precision Engineering was incorporated and held its first Annual Meeting in Dallas, Texas. The theme of the well-attended meeting, "Thresholds in Precision Engineering," was reflected in 28 papers covering a broad spectrum of applications. At this meeting, a Board of Directors was elected with members drawn from industry, private laboratories, government and academia.
ASPE emphasizes the foundations necessary to achieve precision in any application and seeks to bring together practitioners from all of the related fields. The Annual Meeting, held each fall, presents topics spanning the field of precision engineering.
Conferences and Exhibitions
24th Annual Meeting in Monterey, CA October 2009
Publications
The Society jointly publishes a peer-reviewed technical journal, Precision Engineering, in cooperation with its European and Japanese counterparts.
Past conference proceedings have been made freely available, and may be downloaded directly from the Society website.