The globalisation of manufacturing industries leads to a thirst for rapid advancements in technological development and expertise in the fields of advanced design and manufacturing. In this scenario, both industry and academia have an urgent need to equip themselves of the latest knowledge and trends relating to design and manufacture. Global Design to Gain a Competitive Edge collects together papers from the 2008 International Conference on Advanced Design and Manufacture (ICADAM). This conference solicits both cutting edge fundamental research and recent industrial application papers, with a goal towards bringing together from all over the world design and manufacture practitioners from academia, government organisations and industry. Recent advancements, emerging trends and new challenges in the fields of design and manufacturing are covered, with a particular focus on the understanding of the impact of distributed team-based design and manufacture on research and industrial practices for global companies. The proceedings of ICADAM 2008 is divided into two volumes: Global Design to Gain a Competitive Edge: An Holistic and Collaborative Design Approach based on Computational Tools and Advanced Design and Manufacture to Gain a Competitive Edge: New Manufacturing Techniques and their Role in Improving Enterprise Performance.