Abstract
Design and manufacturing integration at the early design stage in product development, that is, the integration of conceptual design and conceptual process planning, may make a big impact. Thus the development of systematic computer-based support for this integration is desirable. To select and evaluate manufacturing processes, some aspects of form information is necessary. Thus when only the functionally critical forms have been determined from major functional requirements, synthesis of the configuration shape in a generic form would enable early assessment of manufacturing, processes. As a stepping stone toward the development of the configuration shape synthesis and process selection, case studies have been conducted using real world industrial parts. In this paper, we present the case studies using a planet carrier and a gear box housing, and discuss the issues in development of the shape synthesis and process selection method to support the design and process planning integration.