Process alternative generation from product geometric design data

Abstract

A fundamental element in operating a competitive manufacturing system is the ability to control material, cost, and other production resources required to transform the raw material to a finished product. To successfully control cost, it is essential that a reliable assessment of the tasks required to manufacture the product be made. This involves identifying the operations and the machine tools required. In this research, a method of decomposing polyhedral components to generate all possible ways to process the part is presented. The technique takes as input the geometric design data of the product, analyzes and interprets the design to identify the volume of material to be machined out from the raw material block to obtain the finished product. The volume of material to be removed are characterized to generate various approach directions from which the material can be machined out.The alternate tool approach directions are used to construct an AND/OR graph that captures the process alternatives. Using this graphical representation, a model is proposed for selecting the best process plan based on some user defined criterion. The developed procedure can be integrated into a CAD/CAM system to provide the required linkage between design and manufacturing and thus, automate a critical link in manufacturing.

State space representation of manufacturing operation plans in the presence of flexible routing capability

“…As stated by Benjaafar and Ramakrishnan (1996), 'this representation does not explicitly differentiate between feasible operations and available machines and may, at least in theory, produce process plans for which no machine exists in the system'. Wei and Egbelu (2000) use an AND/OR graph to represent process alternatives from product geometric design data, focusing on alternative tool approach directions. However, the representation does not directly address manufacturing operation sequences.…”