ABSTRACT

The identification of, and planning for, the activities needed to control and verify quality is a key requirement in manufacturing. This paper examines the need for quality planning, and its close relationship with the outline process planning activity, then introduces an integrated approach to planning for machined components, making use of CAD to provide a feature-based representation of part geometry. Planning is performed automatically using a theoretical framework consisting of a relational algebra, a problem model for process planning, an operational model of machining, and an automated reasoning approach. The approach is capable of planning operation sequences and associated quality activities for both prismatic and axi-symmetric machined components.