Design and machining data integration

The concurrent design of a product and its manufacturing process requires a shared understanding of products and processes among many experts concerned with design and manufacturing. The objective of this paper is to provide an approach for the representation, integration and communication of different experts´ viewpoints in the design and manufacturing phases. Firstly, we describe the problems related to concurrent design and current research works. Then we explain how, using the STEP standard, we can represent an integrated design and manufacturing model. As a case study, we consider the tracking of work-piece dimensions through all the different stages of product development, from design to machining. It is based on a model of machining tolerances based on a factory´s machine-tool characterization. The chosen application case is a turning process. The model is validated by verification of the theoretical results in the case of machining several representative parts. Experiments point out the efficiency of our machining model. Finally, we present future developments of our integration work.