Intermediate Geometric and Interfeature Relationships for Automatic Group Technology Part Coding

Abstract

Abstract Group Technology (GT) is a manufacturing philosophy in which similar parts are grouped together to take advantage of their similarities. GT is implemented with a representation that summarizes the important design and manufacturing features of a part in terms of an alphanumeric code. Automated GT coding relies on a complete geometric description of the part, along with a description of the high level manufacturing features such as slots, holes and pockets, and the spatial relationships between these features. A strategy for the representation and manipulation of interacting and interfeature relationships has been developed. This representation includes a formalism, consisting a set of structural and geometric primitives, along with a methodology for modeling features in the context of interacting and interfeature relationships. This is referred to as the intermediate geometry representation. The information represented includes interactions between features and geometric relationships among features. This paper reports on research to perform automatic GT coding that utilizes the geometric model of the part, the feature model of the part, and the intermediate geometry representation of the part. The interacting and interfeature relationships are shown to significantly facilitate the decision-making processes involved in automated GT coding.