Evaluating the manufacturability of machined parts and their setup plans

Abstract

Design-for-manufacturability is an approach that requires product designers to consider the manufacturing issues of a product concurrently with the geometrical and design aspects. This paper presents a manufacturability evaluation methodology that incorporates design, machining and work-holding issues. The evaluation is carried out in two parts. The ® rst part is related to the machinability of the features of the part, whereas the second part is concerned about the ® xturability of the part with regards to its planar faces. The methodology uses the fuzzy sets theory and the analytical hierarchy process method to evaluate the accessibility, orientation, dimensional tolerances, and surface ® nish speci® cations of a part. The former is used to model the various ill-de® ned boundaries of the criteria, while the latter allows for di erences in opinions from designers/machinists to be incorporated into the evaluation process. The quantitative machinability and ® xturability indices found can be used to evaluate designs and generate redesign suggestions. A setup plans evaluation module has been developed to determine the merit indices of setup plans for machining a part using these machinability and ® xturability indices.

Extraction of Formal Manufacturing Rules from Unstructured English Text

“…Analytical hierarchy process is a structured methodology for analyzing complex decisions and finding the best alternative solution. Ong et al [34], [35] demonstrated the analytical hierarchy process-based manufacturability analysis system that estimates manufacturability index, which is the indicator of the relative ease of manufacturing, based on the different weights of the features relevant to manufacturability. Compared to the other methods, neural network-based method is a relatively recent technique that utilizes an artificial neural network to approximate complex non-linear relations.…”

Manufacturability analysis system: issues and future trends

“…The AHP is a mathematical based decision making technique that allows both qualitative and quantitative aspects to be taken into account when making decisions (Ong 2000;Ong 2003). It not only helps the decision makers to choose the best alternative, but also provides a clear rationale for the choice of AHP by developing and assigning priorities of criteria to judge them (Saaty 2001).…”

Machinability evaluation of work materials using a combined multiple attribute decision-making method

“…Work in the direction of the simultaneous consideration of machining process output variables using mathematical models has been reported by a few researchers [27][28][29][30]. However, there is need for a simple, systematic, logical, easy and convenient procedure which affords industry with an efficient and effective means to evaluate the machinability of work materials.…”