At this year's International Congress on Applications of Lasers and Electro-Optics (ICALEO; Oct. 2-5 Dearborn, MI), sponsored by the Laser Institute of America (LIA; Orlando, FL), plenary speaker Al Ver, vice president of advanced manufacturing engineering at Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, MI), will explore how Ford is regaining momentum in laser body welding-in part as the result of its acquisition of Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover. His speech will be competitively balanced by a presentation from Lawrence Burns, vice president of research and development and planning for General Motors Corp. (Warren, MI).
According to conference cochair Jyoti Mazumder of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), a major focus of this year's ICALEO will be the automotive industry's use of laser technologies to replace or enhance other manufacturing processes--especially in light of the growing acceptance of aluminum autobodies. The congress will include a special Laser Applications in the Automotive Industry Conference, in addition to the Laser Materials Processing Conference and the Laser Microfabrication conference. Short courses will extend beyond automotive manufacturing, though, with topics ranging from micromachining with ultrafast pulses to infrared micromachining and engraving applications and laser processing with high-power laser diodes. More details are available at www.laserinstitute.org.—Paula Noaker Powell, Senior Editor