Step Toward Computer-Aided Integration of Sheet Metal Applications

Integration of sheet metal product design, simplification, and fabrication applications is one of the major titles in the sheet metal industry. The integration of sheet metal product design and production in a computer-aided environment is a challenge due to its complicated shapes and the possibility of applications which it needs. In this paper, step toward computer-aided integration of sheet metal applications based on central repository and information management is explained by describing the development of a generic architecture and basic operations required to build the central repository. This architecture is elaborated upon for the integration of sheet metal part model (design) with sheet metal applications in which sheet process planning is one of them. The architecture and the integrations are demonstrated using a case study.