Sequencing of Setups in Automated Setup and Fixture Planning

The computer aided process planning (CAPP) is bridge between computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacturing (CAM). Setup planning is one of the important tasks in the computer aided process planning. Setup planning consists of identification of tool approach direction (TAD), clustering the manufacturing features based on shared TAD and tolerance relations among the features, setup sequencing between the setups and operation sequencing within the setups. This paper mainly focuses on setup sequencing such that cycle precedence (conflicts between the setups) is resolved. There are most likely chances to occur cycle precedence between the setups at time of setup formation. We use an expert system (knowledge based approach) to avoid such conflicts by break down the setups into smaller setups with the minimum violation of tolerance relations. This approach gives optimal setup plan that is minimum number of setups without any cycle conflicts followed by fixture planning.