Knowledge-Based Computer-Aided Process Planning

Process planning is one of the most important procedures in production because of its interfacing function between the design and the manufacturing procedures. The manufacturing procedure consists mainly of three core activities, i.e., machining, assembly and inspection. Accordingly, there are various kinds of process planning depending on each activity; however, research and development are so far concentrated on process planning for machining. This trend may be attributed to the fact that machining is deeply concerned with part manufacturing, which is fundamental to producing the goods, appliances, equipment, devices and so on required by society. In this chapter, thus, process planning for machining is described.