The integration of inspection into the CIM environment

The authors describe a CIM (computer-integrated manufacturing) system that combines inspection specification and planning with the design process. A part is described in terms of generic features: form features (e.g. pockets or ribs) and inspection and tolerance features (e.g. callouts). Rules for inspection are incorporated as part of the generic features. Part definitions and data structures necessary to describe the design are discussed. An overall design consists of a set of feature instances and their relations. Individual features can be automatically checked as they are specified by the designer for overt errors (e.g. incomplete information such as an undefined datum). The overall design is then evaluated for correctness of geometry and inspection specifications. In particular, the designer´s tolerance specifications are checked for completeness and internal consistency. Once a design is complete, a module generates process and inspection plans by concatenating the processing and inspection rules associated with individual features and optimizing the result with respect to the overall cost of inspection. An implementation is described