Sheet metal bending: Forming part families for generating shared press-brake setups

Sheet metal bending press brakes can be set up to produce more than one type of part without requiring a setup change. To exploit this flexibility, setup planning techniques are needed so that press-brake setups can be shared among many different parts. This paper describes algorithms for partitioning a given set of parts into setup-compatible part families that can be produced on the same setup. First is presented a greedy algorithm to form a part family using a bottom-up approach that makes use of the mixed-integer linear programming formulation for generating shared setups for each part family. Second is presented a mixed-integer linear programming formulation to generate a shared setup for a given set of parts if such a setup exists. By producing many different types of parts on the same setup, it is expected that there will be significant reductions in the number of setup operations, improved machine tool utilization, and more cost-effective small-batch manufacturing.

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