PIM : planning in manufacturing using skeletal plans and features

Abstract

In order to create a production plan from product model data, a human expert thinks in a special terminology with respect to the given work piece and its production plan: He recognizes certain features and associates fragments of a production plan. By combining these skeletal plans he generates the complete production plan. We present a set of representation formalisms suitable for the modelling of this approach. When an expert's knowledge has been represented using these formalisms, the generation of a production plan can be achieved by a sequence of abstraction, selection and refinement. This is demonstrated in the CAPP-system PIM, which is currently developed as a prototype. The close modelling of the knowledge of the concrete expert (or the accumulated know-how of a concrete factory) facilitate the development of planning systems which are especially tailored to the concrete manufacturing environment and optimally use the expert's knowledge and should also lead to improved acceptance of the system.