The automation of a fabrication planner in a rapid design system

The authors describe the software research and development effort to automate the fabrication planning process from a feature-based design input to a numerical-controlled code generation output in order to manufacture simply machined or prismatic parts. A major goal of the research was to create an automatic process planning system for simply machined parts. Inherent in this goal is to confer the why and the what of the design process to the how of manufacturing process in an attempt to unify design with manufacturing. A second major goal is to execute the process plan to manufacture the desired part. The rapid design system offers an environment for design, fabrication, and inspection and generates a process plan that can be stored, retrieved, and modified at will. In addition, an episodal associative memory module retains the learning component for the design and manufacturing of these simply machined parts.<>