Proposed in this thesis is an approach to developing a loading schedule system architecture and a Computer Automated Process Planning (CAPP) for Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) of molding-dies. The thesis consists of two parts. In part-Ⅰ, a Bill Of Process(BOP) network and a Loading Schedule Editor (LSE) architecture are presented. The BOP-network consistently describes precedence relationships among the manufacturing processes for making molding-dies. LSE shows molding-die progress and machine loading status transparently by using Gantt-charts. Based on LSE, a CIM architecture is also presented in this work.
In part-Ⅱ, a methodology for CAPP development is proposed for NC machining in CIM implementation. The proposed methodology has three phases: 1)developing a molding-die process model,2) a configuration-space(C-space) approach to tool-path generation, and 3) the C-space-based STOPP [Choi 1984] algorithm. In the first step, the model which is built around the concepts of machining stages, unit machining processes, and machining-features provides a comprehensive description of the experts' knowledge of the molding-die machining. Through the C-space approach in the second step, the global goemetric information(die-surface, stock-surface and tool shape) required in the molding-die machining process is transformed into C-space elements, and then, all the tool-path generation decisions are made in C-space. Important characteristics of the C-space approach include error-free NC-code generation and an easier representation scheme for machining-feature extraction. In a final step, a CAPP architecture called the C-space based STOPP algorithm is developed. The algorithm is preliminarily implemented using Z-map based CAM software.
The approach proposed in this thesis is expected to contribute to systematizing the manufacturing process for making molding-dies and help reduce the lead-time for molding-die manufacturing.
