Research on ship welding process planning with case-based reasoning

In order to solve the problem that the judgment for the necessity of the welding procedure qualification (WPQ) depends excessively on the experience and the accumulated process knowledge of enterprise can´t be unitized effectively in the traditional welding ship process planning, according to analyzing influencing factors of the ship welding procedure, an advanced planning approach based on case-based reasoning (CBR) was proposed. With this approach combining analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and similarity system theory, the weight and similarity of each factor were calculated, and then the process-similarity was presented to assist the process designer to judge. Adopting the result of judgment, the process planning would be achieved efficiently. Finally, a case study was demonstrated to show the rationality and adaptation of this approach.