IT IN PROFILING - LINKED FEATURES FOR EVERY PROCESS STEP

Connected process chains are standard for the production of many different products -also in woodworking industry. The process chain of profiling for the production of profiled strips, beams etc. includes several different processes as moulding, sanding and coating. The information technologies (IT) for this process chain are not well developed and established. To integrate IT and CAD-CAM-systems into the process chain of profiling firstly a product data model is needed, which is able to-store all relevant data for the production of the profile and to link the processes with consistent data. To link the processes it is important that a subsequent process in the chain is able to obtain all data about the process results of the previous processes to adapt to the profile geometry in this production stage. Therefore the CAM-modules, which also need to be developed individually for .each process type, must consi?er the corruption of the pr~file geometry and estimate the process result w1th the output geometry as 1nput data for the next process step. Due to the material behaviour of wood and wood based materials concerning the shrinking and swelling it is also necessary to calculate the geometry corruptions in case of a change in moisture content of the profile. The product data model together with CAM-modules and a tool to calculate the material behaviour generate all potentials of a modern IT system like the generating of all processing data, process simulations and simultaneous engineering.