FEATURE-BASED PART MODELING AND PROCESS PLANNING FOR RAPID RESPONSE MANUFACTURING

Rapid Response Manufacturing (RRM) attempts to put the product manufac turing into effect in the minimum time to satisfy the customer require ments. This paper presents the methodologies of dynamic and integrated part feature modeling and process planning for RRM applications. In o rder to demonstrate the functions of such system, an integrated model of rotational part feature modeling and process planning has been deve loped. The part feature modeling is constructed on the basis of a hier archical and dynamic structure that consists of feature syntax; featur e semantics and feature operations. For part comparison in RRM, a two- level comparison strategy has proposed and introduced. The process pla nning module can fulfill both variant and generative process design ta sks, and perform part manufacturability evaluation by using a multi-le vel knowledge reasoning. Tb support the integration of RRM, a manufact uring environment model was built. An engine crankshaft was selected a s the test case.:The implementation and sensitivity of the model which was demonstrated by using the crankshaft is included in the paper. (C ) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.