A feature model editor and process planning system for sheet metal products

Sheet metal is widely used for industrial and consumer products because of its malleability into complex shapes. However, in the aerospace industry manufacturing planning of sheet metal products is still mainly carried out manually. Most of the previous research in this field has been primarily devoted to computer aided process planning for rotational and prismatic parts. This paper describes the development of an advanced software toolset used for the automation of sheet metal fabrication planning for aircraft components. The system is specifically designed to be implemented and maintained by manufacturing engineers, rather than computer programmers. Therefore a systematic user requirement capture has been carried out, and the planning knowledge has been captured within a leading aerospace company, which was the main sponsor of the project. The prototype system was then developed in collaboration with a software consultant company and finally evaluated and benchmarked through industrial case studies which proved that the system provides an efficient and effective approach to sheet metal fabrication process planning, when compared with other commercially available systems.