An Integrated Process Planning System Architecture for Machining and On-Machine Inspection

Inspection is an essential part of the entire manufacturing chain providing measurement feedback to the process planning system. Fully automated machining requires automatic inspection process planning and real-time inspection results feedback. As inspection process planning is still based on G&M codes containing low-level information or vendor-specific bespoke routines, inspection process planning is mostly isolated from machining process planning. With the development of new data model standards STEP and STEP-NC providing high-level product information for the entire manufacturing chain, it is achievable to combine machining and inspection process planning to generate optimal machining and inspection sequences with real-time measurement results feedback. This paper introduces an integrated process planning system architecture for combined machining and inspection. In order to provide real-time inspection feedback, On-Machine Inspection (OMI) is chosen to carry out inspection operations. Implementation of the proposed architecture has been partially carried out with a newly developed data model and interpreter software. A case study was carried out to test the feasibility of the proposed architecture.