A setup planning methodology for prismatic parts considering fixturing aspects

Setup planning is an important part of process planning that has been widely investigated by various researchers. However, the output of the traditional setup planning approaches is limited and insufficient for the upstream process planning activity, fixture design. In this work, a setup planning system is developed that provides sufficient inputs to the fixture designer in terms of recommended depth of cut and feed, fuzzy clamping forces, near optimal locator and clamp layout, and sizes of the locators and clamps. The fixture designer can further optimize the fixture plan by taking these inputs. The methodology is illustrated with the help of an example.