Autor: Holger Willms

An important step of the production planning phases is manufacturing chain planning. In this phase the sequence has to be defined, in which a product is manufactured. The step should preferably be realized during the design phase to give feedbacks for the design department at the right time to initiate potential product changes. The following article introduces a system, which generates manufacturing chains in consideration of cost and tolerances. The focus is avoiding too close and cost intensive tolerances already in early manufacturing phases.

Productivity, quality, flexibility and manufacturing costs are not the only criteria for an effective manufacture. To keep competitiveness, a global optimum of the process chain for the manufacturing of an individual product has to be achieved, considering the existing manufacturing capabilities and innovative technologies. In this paper approaches for integrated technology planning are discussed, which are developed at the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) in Aachen.