Active
STEP-Based Product Database Servers for Concurrent Engineering Environments
Senior
Research Fellow
L.
S.San*
Research
Fellow
Gintic
Institute of Manufacturing Technology 71 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 63807 ddomazet@gintic.gov.sg
Abstract
- An active database
server, known as Product Information and Knowledge Server (PIK-S), has been
developed to facilitate concurrent engineering. Current version of PIKS tightly
integrates an expert system with a passive object-oriented management system (ObjectStore)
to create active behavior in both a single- and multiple workspace environments.
Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules are used to specify events that can trigger
appropriate rules, conditions for testing the state of the product database, and
actions to automatically modify the database and specified design objects, or to
generate notification messages. Rules are stored as first class database objects
in order to facilitate better collaboration and knowledge sharing in a
concurrent engineering environment.
Key
words: active databases,
engineering databases, STEP databases, concurrent engineering
The
Magic Matrix as a Simplified CAPP System
Gideon
Halevi
Faculty
of Industrial Engineering and Management Technion - Israel Institute of
Technology, Haifa, ISRAEL 20a Dubnov St. Tel-Aviv 64369, ISRAEL Tel / Fax +
972-3-696 2833 Email: merhlev@techunix.technion.ac.il
Abstract
- Process planning is a data generator for all PM - Production Management
activities. Traditional PM considers process plan as fixed data. Therefore,
the process generating method is of no importance. Today, the market demands
call for new PM objectives. The new objectives call for the integration of CAPP
in PM, which means that process plan must be considered as a variable. To comply
with this new demand, CAPP must generate a process plan instantly and with no
human intervention. Otherwise, the generated process is of no use.
This
paper presents a CAPP system that complies with the above needs. The proposed
CAPP system is composed oftheree stages: technology, transformation, and
mathematics. The technology generates an TP - Theoretical Process. The
transformation stage constructs a matrix. The mathematical stage solves the
matrix and generates a dynamic process plan according to the immediate shop
floor requirements. Key words', process planning, matrix, CAPP, dynamic
programming, production management
Recognition
of product features as a basis for the building of intelligent concurrent design
systems
V.
Majstorovic, P. Bojanic, S. Domazetovic
Mechanical
Engineering Faculty, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Abstract
- Product and process design with the aid of concurrent engineering requires
different product models (geometrical, manufacturing, inspection, on CMM,
assembly maintenance model, etc.). The development of an intelligent system for
implementation of concurrent design concept using the existing CAD/CAM systems
imposes the development of the model for product feature recognition
(geometrical, manufacturing, metrological, assembly features, etc.) as well. The
paper presents the results achieved in the development of such a model to be
used for the building of intelligent design system in virtual environment.
Key
words: Product Modeling, Feature Recognition, Optimization
Operation
Considerations for Motorised Touch Trigger Probes in CMM Inspection Planning
K.
S. Neo, J. Y. H. Fuh, A. Y. C. Nee and Y. F. Zhang
Department
of Mechanical & Production Engineering National University of Singapore 10
Kent Ridge Crescent Singapore 119260
Abstract
- The co-ordinate measuring machine (CMM) has become an important shopfloor
equipment for quality inspection. Like any other shopfloor equipment, the
ability to sustain a high throughput for the CMM is of utmost importance to
avoid serious bottleneck in the production cycle of a manufactured part.
Optimisation of the CMM in terms of cycle time would entail the use of motorised
probes to reduce the number of setups, careful probe selection to reduce
unproductive time due to probe changes, and increasing the measurement speed
of the CMM. However, special care has to be taken to ensure that the quality of
the inspection result is not degraded in the attempt to reduce the CMM
inspection cycle time. The purpose of this paper is to study the
characteristics of motorised touch trigger probes so as to adopt a measurement
strategy for the CMM, where the planning objectives are minimisation of
inspection time and maintaining a high level of confidence in the inspection
result.
Keywords:
CMM, probe selection, probe performance, measurement strategy