Automatic process plan generation in an operative process planning system

The architecture and design of process planning systems should follow the architecture and design of the manufacturing systems they are intended to serve. This article describes a process planning system specifically intended for a workshop orientated factory, a factory which is specialized for the production of a limited number of group technological product lines. The goal of the system is to generate automatically and rapidly reliable part programs from order information. With the system, a process plan can be generated by workshop personnel on the basis of process plan specifications stored in part family models. A part program generation algorithm can then create a part program automatically by pasting together segments of program code stored in the process models of the system. The part program generator can be tailored by new parametric part program definitions related to features. The tool paths of the generated code can be visualised. The system described forms the operative process planner part of the MCOES (BE-3528) process planning system.