EVALUATION OF COMPUTER AIDED PROCESS PLANS WITH COST CONSIDERATIONS

Abstract

The process of product design is driven toward achieving design specifications while meeting cost targets. Designers typically have models and tools to aid in functional and performance analysis of the design but few tools and little quantitative information to aid in cost analysis. So a framework is required to give the designer accurate information about the product cost. In present work a simple method for the cost estimation is presented which can be easily applied for the various features. Input to the method is the output of the feature recognition. A data of various features is prepared. For every feature machine tool, cutting tool, machining parameters are selected and a database is prepared for all the possible machining processes. This feature based cost estimation system is used for the calculation of machining time of various features for various operations. Designers are given feed back with these information for the evaluation of the feasible plan. The framework can be implemented in a software program to aid designers in calculating manufacturing costs from limited design information. Since the information tool provides an estimate of manufacturing costs at the design prototype stage, the development engineer can identify and eliminate expensive components and reduce the need for costly manufacturing processing. Using this methodology to make quantitative trade-offs between material and manufacturing costs, significant savings in overall product costs are achieved.