Abstract
Computer-aided process planning (CAPP) forms an important interface between Computer-aided design (CAD) and Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM). It is concerned with determining the sequence of individual manufacturing operations required to produce a product as per technical specifications given in the part drawing. Any sequence of manufacturing operations that is generated in a process plan cannot be the best possible sequence every time in a changing production environment. As the complexity of the product increases, the number of feasible sequences increases exponentially, and there is a need to choose the best among them. This paper presents an application of a newly developed metaheuristic called the ant colony algorithm as a global search technique for the quick identification of the optimal operations sequence by considering various feasibility constrains. A couple of case studies are taken from the literature to comparing the results obtained by the proposed method.
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Gopala Krishna, A., Mallikarjuna Rao, K. Optimisation of operations sequence in CAPP using an ant colony algorithm. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 29, 159–164 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-004-2491-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-004-2491-y