Title: Integration of machining and inspection

Authors: Yaoyao Fiona Zhao; Xun W. Xu

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland, New Zealand

Abstract: Fully automated machining would require automatic inspection process planning and real-time inspection result feedback. As inspection process planning is still based on G&M codes containing low level information or vendor-specific bespoke routines, inspection process planning is mostly isolated from machining process planning. With the development of new data model standards such as STEP and STEP-NC providing high level product information for the entire manufacturing chain, it is conceivable that both machining and inspection process planning are considered hand-in-hand to generate optimal machining and inspection sequences with real-time measurement result feedback. This paper introduces an integrated process planning system architecture for combined machining and inspection. On-machine inspection (OMI) is chosen to carry out inspection operations in-between machining operations and to provide real-time feedback to process planning. The system is able to automatically insert OMI operations for online measurement. A case study testified the feasibility of the proposed architecture.

Keywords: integrated process planning; on-machine inspection; OMI; STEP-NC; feedback; NC machining.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAET.2012.044580

International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology, 2012 Vol.4 No.1, pp.1 - 31

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

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