I choosed Mechanical Engineering as my major when I entered Beijing Institute of Technology in 1989, because there are some famous manufacturing plants in my hometown.
My BS thesis was Computer Aided Statistic Process Control, something about Quality Control. Helped by Prof. Aifang Pang, I got the basic idea about what research is, and I felt the combination of computer and manufacturing is quite interesting.
My MS thesis was Fault Diagnosis Expert System for AGV in FMS, which was a part of Fault Diagnosis of FMS, a project sponsored by COSTIND. One research principle my advisor, Prof. Xinyi Wang, taught me is "Find a problem, analyse it, and sovle it".
In 1996, I entered Tsinghua University to pursue my PhD. First, I worked on NC Simulation for a National High-Tech project, then on Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) for a NSFC project. My advisor, Prof. Xiankui Wang, suggested the combination of CAPP and CAM as the direction for my dissertation. After literature review, and discussion with Prof. Wang and Prof. Chengying Liu, I thought the combination of CAPP and Supply Chain is better, because Virtual Enterprise would be a good business model in the future.