Generation of workpiece orientations for machining using a rule-based system

Abstract This paper deals with the automatic generation of workpiece orientations on a machine for machining operations. A system capable of this has a wide spectrum of applications in many areas of manufacturing planning and is essential to the development of dynamic process planning systems. However, such a system requires the ability to reason about geometrical and spatial relationships, a topic of great difficulty for automatic reasoning. A study of the problem characteristics is made and its results are implemented in a rule-based system. This system, when given a workpiece along with operation instructions and machine specifications is capable of generating a good orientation for the workpiece. The functioning of the system is demonstrated by an example.