Standardizing the Process Information for Machining Operations Through Self-Contained Structures

Abstract

A mechanical product is manufactured through multiple processes and procedures. The process information is coded in a part program, and a large amount of unstructured information comes from the shop floor. This results in the loss of logic formulated for the creation of a code. Moreover, it is impossible to track the modifications carried out during these processes. Thus, the unavailability of appropriate and standard knowledge of part processing leads to the situation where the information must be recreated every time a similar part is manufactured, hence, increasing the process planning time. One solution is to divide it into two steps: first, by fetching the information and coding it in a standardized structure; second saving it in a suitable form, facilitating in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of process design for available parts as well as anticipating the new parts. This was achieved by using the previous information related to the process combined with the one obtained from the shop floor. The proposed work concerns capturing the unstructured information from the existing part programs and regaining it using process simulation (VERICUT). Through the extraction of theoretical and graphical geometric data, the interactions between the operations were analyzed. The operational knowledge in this work includes: origin, feed-rate, rotating speed of the tool, rapid movement, cutting tool, material knowledge, and some geometric information of the process. The proposed approach based on simulations and mathematical programming logic is a way to improve flexibility at process and system level by formalizing the available operational knowledge. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach, a case study was carried out on a real industrial part program

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