Research And Development Of Capp And PDM Systems Integration

The Computer Aided Process Planning, CAPP in short, is an important part of CIMS (Computer Integreted Manufacturing System), and it's also a key step to achieve the aim for enterprises' information integration which connects CAD and CAM as a bridge. So, integrating CAPP with other applications of Enterprises is very important. But the few popular domestic CAPP products are developed independently for the sake of history. Their architectures are different and independent from each other, so do their interfaces style and the flow of using. For these reasons, there are inate difficultis to do the integration.Based on the management of product data, the PDM system intends to acomplish the integration of functions, processes, staffs and organizations, so it can help the enterprise to manage the product data and working processes very well. For these reasons, PDM can be regarded as a platform to integrate various kinds of applications, including the CAPP system.By integrating CAPP with PDM, the designing and manufacturing can be linked effectively and the aim for single data source and data sharing among the systems of CAPP, CAD/CAM, ERP/MRPII, can be achieved. It also helps the enterprise to standardize the working flow, improve the degree of parallelism between designing and manufacturing, cut the cycle of production, and reduce the cost.This paper analyses the architecture and contents of the integrating system of CAPP and PDM, and compares the few kinds of integrating methods and modes, then introduces the work to be done to acomplish the integration of PDM and CAPP under the mode of customzation. At Last I introduce, in detail, the process of constructing the Process Planning information system based on PDM, which includes the storing and management of CAPP data, the exchange of data between CAPP and PDM, the management of Process planning workflow, and the customization that made to CAPP and PDM software.1) The storing and mangement of CAPP data: Redesign the storing method of CAPP data in the integration system, which share the responsibility for managing the data between CAPP and PDM, instead of only by CAPP.2) The data Exchange between the systems: Using the XML technology to exchange the data.3) The Management of Process Planning workflow: Illuminate the Process Planning workflow in the Integrating system and make the workflow model.4) The modification made to CAPP softeware and the customization made to PDM software: Using the tools provided by PDM to make the technics class, associated messages, menus and dialogs. Reprogram the CAPP software to modify the starting process and the privilege control.