Development of automated fixture planning systems

Fixturing is an important manufacturing activity. The computer-aided fixture design technique is being rapidly developed to reduce the lead time involved in manufacturing planning. An automated fixture configuration design system has been developed to select automatically modular fixture components and place them in position with satisfactory assembly relationships. In this paper, an automated fixturing planning system is presented in which fixturing surfaces and points are automatically determined based on workpiece geometry and operational information. Fixturing surface accessibility, feature accuracy, and fixturing stability are the main concerns in the fixture planning. The system development, the fixture planning decision procedure, and an implementation example are presented in the paper.