Publications

Edge finishing processes have seemed like ideal candidates for automation. Most edge finishing processes are unpleasant, dangerous, tedious, expensive, not repeatable and labor intensive. Estimates place the cost of manual edge finishing processes at 12% of the total cost of fabricating precision parts. For small, high precision parts, the cost of hand finishing may be as high as 305 of the total part cost. Up to 50% of this cost could be saved through automation. This cost estimate includes the direct costs of edge finishing: the machining hours required and the 30% scrap and rework rate after manual finishing. Not included in these estimates are the indirect costs resulting from cumulative trauma disorders and retraining costs caused by the high turnover rate for finishing jobs.. Despite the apparent economic advantages, edge finishing has proven difficult to automate except in low precision and/or high volume production environments. Finishing automation systems have not been deployed successfully in Department of Energy defense programs (DOE/DP) production, A few systems have been attempted but have been subsequently abandoned for traditional edge finishing approaches: scraping, grinding, and filing the edges using modified dental tools and hand held power tools. Edge finishing automation has been an elusive but potentially lucrative production enhancement. The amount of time required for reconfiguring workcells for new parts, the time required to reprogram the workcells to finish new parts, and automation equipment to respond to fixturing errors and part tolerances are the most common reasons cited for eliminating automation as an option for DOE/DP edge finishing applications. Existing automated finishing systems have proven to be economically viable only where setup and reprogramming costs are a negligible fraction of overall production costs.

This paper describes a new project undertaken by Sandia National Laboratories to develop an agile, automated, high-precision edge finishing system. The project has a two-year duration and was initiated in October, 1994. This project involves re-designing and adding additional capabilities to an existing finishing workcell at Sandia; and developing intelligent methods for automating process definition and for controlling finishing processes. The resulting system will serve as a prototype for systems that will be deployed into highly flexible automated production lines. The production systems will be used to produce a wide variety of products with limited production quantities and quick turnaround requirements. The prototype system is designed to allow programming, process definition, fixture re-configuration, and process verification to be performed off-line for new products. CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing) models of the part will be used to assist with the automated process development and process control tasks. To achieve Sandia`s performance goals, the system will be employ advanced path planning, burr prediction expert systems, automated process definition, statistical process models in a process database, and a two-level control scheme using hybrid position-force control and fuzzy logic control. In this paper, we discuss the progress and the planned system development under this project.