An Adaptive Process Planning Method Based on Features and Intelligent Agents for the Manufacturing of Large-Scale Parts

Process planning plays an important role for ensuring machining quality, reducing production cost, and shortening leading time. Since there are many uncertainty factors for manufacturing resources in a changing manufacturing environment, especially for small batch manufacturing of large scale parts requiring long process planning time, manufacturing companies are facing significant challenges on process planning of such large scale parts. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes an adaptive process planning method based on machining features and intelligent agents for the manufacturing of large-scale parts. Machining features are used as the carrier of manufacturing knowledge, which provides basis for process planning. Intelligent agents are used to respond to the changing of manufacturing resources. When the manufacturing environment changes, intelligent agents can sense the changes and make decisions in real time. The proposed process planning method can adapt to the changing manufacturing environment and can also shorten process planning time.