Process planning: A knowledge-based and optimization perspective

Process planning for a part involves preparation of a plan that outlines the processing route, operations, machine tools, and so on. The decomposition of the process-planning task into eight phases is discussed. For each phase, problems and suitable solution approaches are discussed. Most process-planning problems are solved using a knowledge-based approach or a combination of optimization and knowledge-based approaches. The knowledge-based approach solves the qualitative subproblems, and the optimization perspective tackles the quantitative aspect of the subproblems. The concepts presented are illustrated with examples.