In recent years, manufacturing technologies have been progressing with the high demands of industry. In the automobile and aircraft industries, for example, the manufacturing processes have been requiring for technologies that allow for high machining rates of lightweight and/or difficult-to-cut materials. Medical device production includes the machining of biocompatible materials that have high mechanical strength. Information devices require high quality in ultra-precision manufacturing processes. Measurement and characterization technologies in manufacturing have also been essential in the progress. Along with evolution of manufacturing technologies, scientific studies have been done on manufacturing phenomena and the control of processes, based on physical and/or mathematical aspects.

This special issue is promoted by the International Conference on Leading Edge Manufacturing/Materials & Processing (LEM&P2020), which was canceled to protect the health and wellness of our community from COVID-19, and by the Research Committee of Cutting Technologies in the Japan Society for Precision Engineering.

This special issue includes 17 papers that detail progress and innovations 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 also includes not only technical but also scientific discussions, suggesting new key technologies for future manufacturing. We hope this will help the readers to understand the manufacturing processes and improve their operations.

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