The generative method is a subject of theoretical and experimental research. Difficulties with its implementation are connected with the lack of formal description of the synthesis of activities constituting the manufacturing process. To overcome the difficulties while developing the huge technological knowledge base, a semigenerative method is often used. In this method the pattern is characte...

Optimizing manufacturing process modeling is critical to improving the efficiency and quality of manufacturing. However, manufacturing processes in general can be very complicated. A manufacturing process may involve (a) transforming a material into a new form, (b) combining different materials to form a new object, and (c) retrieving a certain part from a material as a new entity. All those ac...

This paper presents a Laser Additive Manufacturing Process Planning (LAMPP) being developed at the University of Missouri-Rolla. The off-line planning recognizes difficult-to-build features from an STL file, selects optimal part orientation and building directions based on the skeleton information of the object geometry, and optimizes the sub-process sequences for deposition and machining. Duri...

Artificial intelligence planning methods haven’t been used until rec ently to address the problem of computer-aided process planning (CAPP) in manufacturing in its entirety. They were simply not developed enough to tackle real-world problems of that complexity. In the paper we show that with so-called Hierarchical Task Networks, a recently matured general-purpose domainindependent planning meth...

Procurement is migrating from paper-based to electronic -based processes, thus the term e-procurement. Eprocurement can shortened the time between receipt and fulfillment of orders, thus reducing inventory and improve company cash flow. Successful e-procurement process design and improvement efforts require the understanding of the behaviour of work flowing through the system. Changes at one st...

This paper presents an integrated methodology for building a virtual factory. This methodology integrates discrete event simulation directly to 3D animation with its novel methods that analyze and convert discrete simulation results into animation events to trigger 3D animation. In addition, it constructs a 3D animation framework for the visualization of discrete event simulation. This framewor...

Metal forming processes, compared with machining ones, reduce production steps and increase manufacturing speed in addition to saving raw material. In this paper, forming process of column of a steering mechanism is investigated by finite element analyses and experimental tests; and optimum die design parameters are found. Forming process parameters including die opening angle, bearing length, ...

A manufacturing feature can be defined simply as a geometric shape and its manufacturing information to create the shape. For the generation of process plans in a manufacturing feature-based process planning system, it is necessary to develop a manufacturing feature library that consists of predefined manufacturing features and the manufacturing information to create the shape of the features. ...