An Internet-based system for setup planning in machining operations

Setup planning is a complex and intuitive process. An efficient setup planning system is essential to cut costs and to reduce lead-time. In this paper, an integrated system based on Internet for setup planning is presented. The system is implemented based on a simple three-tier thin client-fat server architecture. The utilizing of (extensible modeling language) XML as a file format provides means for the transfer of information between various manufacturing systems. A methodology for setup planning is also presented, and in which the machining precedence, tolerance requirement and fixturing constraints are taken into consideration. Hence, a practical and global optimal setup plan along with fixturing features in each setup will be generated by this methodology. A case study is presented to illustrate the proposed system and to show the effectiveness of the presented setup planning methodology.