AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO ASSEMBLING AND AUTOMATING MODULAR FIXTURES DESIGN

CAD/CAM activities play a crucial role in flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs). These activities have been improved due to the rapid development of computer technology. This improvement results in high productivity as well as the costs and time saving for FMSs which use computer numerical control (CNC) machined as major components. Modular fixtures (MFs) design is one of these activities that need to be developed. Computer aided fixture design (CAFD) systems were solutions for MFs design process. However, the need of automated CAFD systems has become important due to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In this paper, a methodology of the assembly process of CAFD system is presented by using SolidWorks as a powerful CAD environment. A proposed approach to automate CAFD system is also illustrated by applying the expert system and the knowledge base in SolidWorks.