A STEP-compliant approach to turning operations

There is no doubt that today manufacturing is more competitive and challenging than ever before in trying to respond to “production on demand”. Due to the complexity of programming there is a need to model process capability to improve the interoperable manufacturing capability of machines such as turning centres. This chapter focuses on the use of the new standard; ISO 14649 (STEP-NC), to address the process planning and machining of discrete turned components. It explores how ISO 14649 can be used to combine turning and milling operations to support interoperable CNC manufacturing of rotational asymmetric components at a single turning centre. This chapter focuses on the creation of a computational environment for a STEP-NC compliant system for turning operations namely SCSTO. SCSTO is the experimental part of the research, supported by specification of information models and constructed using a structured methodology and object-oriented methods. SCSTO was developed to generate a Part 21 file based on machining features to support the interactive generation of process plans utilising feature extraction. An important aspect was the need to overcome the complexities of component geometry including milling features so as to have the ability to manufacture turn/mill components.