Book excerpt: Advances in engineering precision have tracked with technological progress for hundreds of years. Over the last few decades, precision engineering has been the specific focus of research on an international scale. The outcome of this effort has been the establishment of a broad range of engineering principles and techniques that form the foundation of precision design. Today’s precision manufacturing machines and measuring instruments represent highly specialised processes that combine deterministic engineering with metrology. Spanning a broad range of technology applications, precision engineering principles frequently bring together scientific ideas drawn from mechanics, materials, optics, electronics, control, thermo-mechanics, dynamics, and software engineering. This book provides a collection of these principles in a single source. Each topic is presented at a level suitable for both undergraduate students and precision engineers in the field. Also included is a wealth of references and example problems to consolidate ideas, and help guide the interested reader to more advanced literature on specific implementations.