Universal Manufacturing Platform for CNC Machining

Today, CNC technology is a major contributor to the production capacity of industrial companies. The current NC standards only allow rudimentary low-bandwidth information transfer between various resources. A complex network of post-processors is therefore needed for the basic functionality of CAD/CAM/CNC systems. In this paper, the authors investigate and design a universal platform for supporting CNC manufacturing. The platform shifts the necessary knowledge transformations from the vendor specific software domain to the conceptual model space. This will eliminate the requirement for postprocessors. Consequently, resources will be interchangeable and interoperable, adding to the strategic agility of the manufacturing network.