A Survey of Automated Process Planning Approaches in Machining

Global industrial trend is shifting towards next industrial revolution Industry 4.0. It is becoming increasingly important for modern manufacturing industries to develop a Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system by integrating the various operational and information processing functions in design and manufacturing. In spite of being active in research for almost four decades, it is clear that new functionalities are needed to integrate and realize a completely optimal process planning which can be fully compliant towards Smart Factory. In order to develop a CIM system, Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP) plays a key role and therefore it has been the focus of many researchers. In order to gain insight into the current state-of-the-art of CAPP methodologies, 96 research papers have been reviewed. Subsequent sections discuss the different CAPP approaches adopted by researchers to automate different process planning tasks. This paper aims at addressing the key approaches involved and future directions towards Smart Manufacturing