OPTIMIZED INFORMATION-STRUCTURE FOR DESIGN AND SCHEDULING

A system concept was developed to optimize the shaft design and the scheduling of a gear-box production. 350 shafts were analysed based on their functional structure. The design is supported by creation of a set of so-called function elements which provides a simplified description of the shaft structure. By determining the element specific machining operations and their sequences, an automatical derivation of a suitable shaft machining schedule can be achieved directly from the CAD-design, based on the function element description.