Cost evaluation in design with form features

Reducing the cost of a product at the design stage is more effective than at the manufacturing stage. In this paper, an attempt is presented to quantify the manufacturing cost in feature-based design. Machining form features are classified as simple and complex. The machining cost of a part depends not only on the type of form features, but also on the relationship among the features. This cost is calculated for four different cases: traditional machining, simultaneous machining, simultaneous set-up and changeover, and multiple machine tools. A manufacturing process is represented with a digraph. The feature-based evaluation of manufacturing cost is formulated as the shortest path problem, and a mathematical model as well as an algorithm are presented to determine the minimum cost design alternative. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd