DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A RELATIONAL DATA-BASE FOR AUTOMATED PROCESS PLANNING

The function of process planning in a manufacturing facility is to ide ntify the processes and the machines required to convert a design into its final form. Majority of the process plans are still made manually . The degree of the process plan detail varies with the shop environme nt. A feature-based process planning system which interacts with the S DRC I-DEAS solid modeling software is presented. The system operates u nder the UNIX environment. A relational database model which incorpora tes manufacturing details including the operation selection, machine s election, tool selection, fixture selection, etc. was developed and im plemented. This relational database was structured using Microsoft SQL SERVER for the PC multi-user environment. This database is part of an ongoing research project on automated process planning and scheduling and primarily focuses on prismatic parts. The developed routines gene rate the Overall Removable Volume (ORV) graphically by comparing the d esirable design to the blank work piece. The routines then decompose t he ORV into various General Manufacturing Features (GMF) based on conc ave edges. The recognition routine captures geometrical and topologica l information and identifies the shape of each GMF. An expert system ( using CLIPS expert' system shell) analyzes the GMFs and determines app ropriate operation(s) for the designed part. The developed expert syst em is capable of recommending the suitable machines, tools, fixtures, etc.