Integrated 3D-fixture design by means of feature modelling and rule support

Fixture design is widely regarded as a very complex task because of many connections between different product development- and machining phases and manifold design dependencies. Additional aggravations are due to the fact that the correlation's between product design, manufacturing planning, and fixture design are not only hierarchical-unidirectional. In practice changes during fixturing are typically the starting point for necessary changes of already made decisions in manufacturing planning or even in part design. The paper presented deals with solution aspects and problems regarding the design of a system that aims at data- and function integration for computer aided fixture design. There will be findings and experiences presented that have been made during the development of a prototype system for Integrated Fixture Design of modular fixtures under involvement of feature modeling as well as rule-based solution finding.