Summary of CAPP Techniques

 This unit discusses the importance of CAPP in achieving a fully automated factory. Process planning forms a link between CAD and CAM, which actually translates the design language into the manufacturing language. There have been a great number of efforts and studies to achieve the major goal via CAPP; to effectively integrate the design and manufacturing, providing the automation and standardisation of the process planning function.

The two major methods used in computer-aided process planning are the variant CAPP method and the generative CAPP method. The concept, structure and complexity of systems using these two approaches are very different. These two approaches have been distinguished.

A brief discussion of knowledge-based process planning is also given. A knowledge-based system refers to a computer program that can store knowledge of a particular domain and use that knowledge to solve problems from that domain in an intelligent way. The knowledge based systems like GARI, EXPLAN were briefly discussed.