Читать книгу Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing - Zhuming Bi - Страница 27

A manufacturing system is involved in numerous decision‐making activities and computers outperform human beings at many tasks in both materials and information flows, such as machine operation, planning and scheduling, engineering, analysis, data acquisition and sharing, computing, data storage, data retrieval, and inspection (Cummings 2014; Sotala 2012). The importance of computer aided technologies can be clearly evidenced by the growing number of computer aided tools exemplified in Figure 1.5. The rapidly developing information technologies (IT) make all of these advanced manufacturing technologies practical.

Figure 1.18 shows some typical manufacturing activities in a product lifecycle from the identification of design requirements of products to the delivery of final products to end‐users. The fulfilment of these manufacturing activities is mostly assisted by computer programs. For example, CAD tools are used to create, modify, and optimize the design of parts, products, processes, and systems by using computer systems. CAM tools use computer software to control machine tools and related machinery in the manufacture of workpieces. CAD/CAM tools provide an integrated solution to bridge CAD and CAM systems. Figure 1.19 gives some typical computer aided tools under the categories of CAD, CAM, and CAD/CAM tools. For example, the CAD tools for geometric modelling, dimensioning and tolerance, design for assembly, kinematic and dynamic simulation, and engineering analysis will be covered in this book.

Figure 1.18 CATs in designing, manufacturing, and assembling and system integration.

Figure 1.19 Typical computer aided tools in CAD, CAM, and CAD/CAM.

Figure 1.20 shows that the capabilities of CATs have been continuously expanded in two aspects: (i) the variety of functionalities from isolated applications for individuals of parts or processes at a lower level to the planning for service‐oriented enterprise alliances at a higher level and (ii) the level of system integration from isolated system components to holistic integration across enterprises.

Figure 1.20 The evolution of computer aided technologies in manufacturing, (a) The increasing varieties of system functionalities and (b) the increasing level of system integrations.