Tying Together Design, Process Planning and Machining with Step-NC Technology

Published

June 13, 2002

Author(s)

Frederick M. Proctor, John L. Michaloski, William P. Shackleford

Abstract

While simulation has been successful in tying design and process planning into an iterative loop, machining has traditionally been a downstream terminus of the manufacturing cycle. Simulation of machining has proven difficult due to the highly dynamic and nonlinear nature of the material removal process. Consequently, actual machining must be performed to determine the suitability of designs and process plans. The nature of the programming interface to machine tools has been an obstacle to information flow in both directions. Toward the machine tool, useful design and process information is reduced to primitive tool path motion statements. From the machine tool, no automatic data paths exist, so machinists must translate results into recommendations for design or process changes manually. The advent of STEP (ISO 10303) data for numerical control, or STEP-NC, promises to rectify these problems by providing full product and process data to the machine tool controller at run time and an automatic path back to these upstream activities using technologies such as XML. This paper describes STEP-NC and early experiences that show how these benefits can be achieved.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the World Automation Congress (WAC) 2002 part of the International Symp. on Manufacturing and Applications (ISOMA)

Conference Dates

June 9-13, 2002

Conference Location

Orlando, FL, USA

Conference Title

World Automation Congress (WAC) 2002 part of the International Symp. on Manufacturing and Applications (ISOMA)

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

design, ISO 10303, ISO 14649, machining, manufacturing, numerical control, process planning, STEP

Citation

Proctor, F. , Michaloski, J. and Shackleford, W. (2002), Tying Together Design, Process Planning and Machining with Step-NC Technology, Proceedings of the World Automation Congress (WAC) 2002 part of the International Symp. on Manufacturing and Applications (ISOMA), Orlando, FL, USA, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=821681 (Accessed April 24, 2024)