Linking Product Design and Manufacturing Capability through a Manufacturing Strategy Representation

This paper presents a global manufacturing data model that can provide information structures to capture the manufacturing capability information in a global enterprise. In particular it focuses on a manufacturing strategy representation which links shape production to manufacturing processes and resources. An object oriented manufacturing model based on the machining process, designed using UML and implemented using ObjectStore is discussed. A range of machining strategies for pockets, holes and planar faces are represented and their links to manufacturing processes and resources is described. The relationship between this model and manufacturing features within a product model is highlighted