Multi-Part Setup Planning for Sheet Metal Bending Operations
Abstract Most process planning systems solve process planning problem for individual parts. Quite often, many different parts can be produced on shared setups. However, plans generated by current process planning systems fail to exploit this commonality between setups and try to generate optimal setups for individual parts. In this paper, we present an algorithm for multi-part setup planning. This algorithm takes a family of parts and tries to find a composite setup plan that can work for every part in the part family. Our setup planning algorithm employs a new two-step approach to handle multi-part setup planning problems. First, we identify the setup constraints imposed by various bending operations in the part family. These setup constraints describe spatial constraints on sizes and locations of various tooling stages in the setup. After identifying setup constraints, we try to generate setup plans that can satisfy all setup constraints. Any setup plan that satisfies all setup constraints is capable of accommodating every part in the part family. Setup changes constitute a major portion of the production time in batch production environments. We believe that multipart setup planning technique can be used to significantly cut down the total number of setups and increase the overall throughput.