Integrated CAD/CAPP/CAM and ANN in sheet metal punching and nippling operations

The integration between CAD and CAM is vital to the competitiveness between the manufacturing companies and their rapid respond ability to market changes. The integration is an entrance to the world of digital manufacturing and the computer integrated manufacturing "CIM". The CIM construction is based on a group of links. The process planning activates is represent as one of this CIM links. The present work aims to integrate CAD, CAPP and CAM to obtain a solution for automated process planning for sheet metal parts. The integration is accomplished by using CREO software as a CAD system in sheet metal, building a knowledge base and generating CAPP program to select optimum cutting parameters using artificial Neural Network. The output is then taken from CAD file and operations schedule from CAPP file to extract tool path program for selected machine tool (CAM). A case study for a sheet metal part is proposed to demonstrate the system procedure and its applicability. It can be concluded that the integrated system decreases the errors which may creep into process and save the extra efforts spent with separate systems. The system makes use of the interaction and consulting capabilities of human experts, also it may be used for other future applications to obtain intelligent CAPP for various parts.