The theme of the present editorial is dedicated to the “Advances on Mechanics, Design Engineering and Manufacturing” that emerge in different engineering and architectural fields.

The theme has been chosen as leitmotiv of a series of events that have been organized by three societies operating in Italy, Spain and France, respectively: ADM (Associazione nazionale Disegno e Metodi dell’ingegneria industriale), INGEGRAF (Asociación Española de Ingeniería Gráfica and AIP-PRIMECA (Ateliers Inter-établissements de Productique—Pôles de Resources Informatiques pour la MECAnique). Since 2014, a series of JCM conferences have been organized. JCM is the acronym of “Joint Conference on Mechanics, Design Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing”.

During the last JCM conference that was held in Catania (Italy) on 14–16 September 2016, after a peer-reviewed process, 123 papers, mainly from academic institutions, have been accepted and presented in oral and poster sessions. The papers are collected in the volume [1].

JCM Conferences are characterized by a set of topics, that follow the general advances of the knowledge in the fields of interest of the three above-mentioned societies and that merge the general scope of IJIDeM, as presented in [2].

The topics of the 2016 edition of JCM Conference have been:

  • Integrated Product and Process Design

  • Product Manufacturing and Additive Manufacturing

  • Engineering Methods in Medicine

  • Nautical, Aeronautics and Aerospace Design and Modelling

  • Computer Aided Design and Virtual Simulation

  • Education and Representation Techniques

  • Geometric Product Characteristics

  • Innovative Design

The 2018 edition of the JCM Conference, held in Cartagena (Spain) in the month of June, has update and lightly modified the field of interest also towards:

  • Product Design and Development

  • Computer-Aided Design and Interactive Design

  • Manufacturing and Industrial Process Design

  • Graphical Bioengineering

  • Innovation

  • Teaching and Learning

The 125 papers selected for the JCM 2018 Conference will appear as a volume of Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering edited by Springer.

The present Editorial would like to introduce the papers that, after a further selection on the basis of the higher ranking obtained by Scientific Committee of the JCM 2016 Conference, have been invited for publication on IJIDeM. They are related to some topics of the Conference. The papers appeared on the issues 2 and 3 of the 2018 IJIDeM volume.

The topic Integrated Product and Process Design has been studied by Barbieri et al. [3], Rizzuti and De Napoli [4].

The topic Product Manufacturing and Additive Manufacturing has been studied by Le et al. [5], Vitolo et al. [6].

The topic Engineering Method in Medicine has been investigated by several approaches, by Uccheddu et al. [7], Ingrassia et al. [8], Solaberrieta et al. [9], Íñiguez-Macedo et al. [10], Cappetti and Naddeo [11].

The topic Nautical, Aeronautics and Aerospace Design and Modelling has been studied by Mancuso et al. [12] and Cucinotta et al. [13].

The topic Computer Aided Design and Virtual Simulation has been investigated in Lapini et al. [14], Barbagallo et al. [15].

The topic Geometric Product Characteristics has been studied by Di Angelo et al. [16].

The topic Innovative Design collected, among others, the paper Feno et al. [17].

All who wish to submit a contribution on the topics reported above are invited to the JCM2020 edition that will take place in Aix-en-Provence (France) on June 2020, organized by S-mart (Systems, Manufacturing, Academics, Resources, Technologies), new name of the French society involved in the joint event.