Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) inspection planning and knowledge capture – formalising a black art

In manufacturing, the automated elicitation of engineering knowledge is a major challenge due to the increasing knowledge-intensive processes and systems used in industry. Capturing and formalizing engineering knowledge is a highly costly and time-consuming task. The existing literature covers little in this field, leaving unanswered the technical difficulties of capturing and representing knowledge in Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM) inspection planning applications. This work presents the Inspection Planning and Capturing Knowledge (IPaCK) system, a novel paradigm for the automated capturing and formalising of human centred expertise in the field of CMM planning. The proposed solution is an innovative physical setup using a simple tracked hand-held probe that facilitates intuitive planning of a CMM measurement strategy as a user interacts with a real component. As the sequence is generated, in real time a motion tracking-based digital tool logs user activity throughout the task. A post processor then converts log file data into multiple formalised outputs representing the knowledge created and utilised during the CMM inspection planning task. Experienced CMM inspection planners validated IPaCK’s potential to produce knowledge representations of CMM planning strategies that were useful, relevant and accurate. A comparison of planning strategies resulted in the detection of measurement patterns; embedding both inspection planning knowledge and experience, constituting the first known implementation of automatically capturing best practice and defining benchmarks to evaluate future planning strategies. A task completion time (TCT) comparison against a conventional CMM showed that IPaCK facilitates faster measurement planning and part programming. On using the system, novice planners rated IPaCK and its knowledge representations to provide significant metacognition support to CMM planning and training. Experienced planners confirmed IPaCK’s knowledge capture capability and that the formats were industry acceptable, relevant and beneficial in inspection planning tasks. IPaCK could be at the heart of the next generation of CMM inspection planning systems; one that automatically captures and formalises inspection planning knowledge and experience in multiple outputs. This thesis presents the underpinning science and technology to realise the implementation