Systematic approach to analysing the manufacturability of machined parts

The ability to quickly introduce new quality products is a decisive factor in capturing market share. Because of pressing demands to reduce leadtimes, analysing the manufacturability of the proposed design has become an important step in the design stage. The paper presents an approach to analysing the manufacturability of machined parts.Evaluating the manufacturability of a proposed design involves determining whether or not it is manufacturable with a given set of manufacturing operations, and, if it is, finding the associated manufacturing efficiency. Since there can be several different ways to manufacture a proposed design, this requires that different ways to manufacture it be considered, in order to determine which one best meets the design and manufacturing objectives.
The first step in the approach is to identify all the machining operations which can potentially be used to create the given design. Using these operations, different operation plans are generated for machining the part. Each time a new operation plan is generated, the user examines whether it can produce the desired shape and tolerances, and calculates its manufacturability rating. If no operation plan can be found that is capable of producing the design, then the given design is considered unmachinable; otherwise, the manufacturability rating for the design is the rating of the best operation plan.
The authors expect that, by providing feedback about possible problems with the design, the work described in the paper will help in speeding up the evaluation of new product designs so that it can be decided how or whether to manufacture them. Such a capability will be useful in responding quickly to changing demands and opportunities in the marketplace.