The collection of papers in this book comprises the proceedings of the 23rd CIRP Design Conference held between March 11th and March 13th 2013 at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. The event was organized in cooperation with the German Academic Society for Product Development - WiGeP. The focus of the conference was  on 'Smart Product Engineering', covering two major aspects of modern  product creation: the development of intelligent ("smart") products as well as the new ("smart") approach of engineering, explicitly taking into account consistent systems integration. Throughout the 97 papers contained in these proceedings, a range of topics are covered, amongst them the different facets and aspects of what makes a product or an engineering solution "smart". In addition, the conference papers investigate new ways of engineering for production planning and collaboration towards Smart Product Engineering. The publications provide a solid insight into the pressing issues of modern digital product creation facing increasing challenges in a rapidly changing industrial environment. They also give implicit advice how a "smart" product or engineering solution (processes, methods and tools) needs to be designed and implemented in order to become successful.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Abramovici is head of the Chair for IT in Mechanical Engineering and Director at the Institute of Management (ifu) at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rainer Stark is head of the Chair Industrial Information Technology at the Technische Universität Berlin and Director of the Division Virtual Product Creation of the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology in Berlin.