A methodology for cutting-tool management through the integration of CAPP and scheduling

Tool management is an important element in the efficiency of flexible manufacturing systems. This paper improves manufacturing flexibility through integrated computer-aided process planning and scheduling with tool management. A new methodology for cutting-tool management is introduced, based on the use of alternative tools. In the methodology proposed, computer-aided process planning singles out all possible tool alternatives for each operation. The tool manager is designed to solve interferences between tool alternatives to make them compatible with scheduling. Interferences occur when the same tools are simultaneously needed in various machining operations. We propose a method to reduce tool alternatives. Thus, interferences disappear, and a collection of tool alternatives compatible with the scheduling of the system is obtained for machining operations. Tool management can use these sets of tools to plan tool changes that are necessary to face tool wear and to react to perturbations in the production system. To prove the response of our proposal, computational experiments are performed on randomly generated test problems.