Recently, manufacturing technologies have progressed owing to high industrial demand. For example, in the automobile and aircraft industries, manufacturing processes require technologies that allow for high machining rates of lightweight and/or difficult-to-cut materials. Fabricating medical equipment involves the machining of biocompatible materials with high mechanical strength. Information devices require high-quality ultraprecision manufacturing processes. Furthermore, measurement and characterization technologies are also essential for manufacturing. Along with the evolution of manufacturing technologies, scientific studies have been performed on manufacturing phenomena and process control based on physical and/or mathematical aspects.

This special issue was promoted by the International Conference on Leading Edge Manufacturing/Materials & Processing (LEM&P2023) held from June 12, 2023 to June 16, 2023 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, sponsored by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers. This conference was co-located with the Manufacturing Science Engineering Conference (MSEC), ASME, and North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), SME.

This special issue includes nine papers that describe the innovations and detailed progress in the following areas:

- Characterization of materials

- Fundamental study and modeling of material removal process

- Manufacturing control and optimization

- Manufacturing processes for new hard materials

- Micro-/Nano-scale manufacturing

- Tool manufacturing and performance

- Metrology and evaluation

- Surface characterization

This special issue includes technical and scientific discussions that suggest new key technologies for future manufacturing. We hope that this will help readers understand manufacturing processes and improve their operations.

We thank the authors and reviewers for their generous cooperation and the editing staff for their contributions.