Research On Tool Direct Marking And Information Tracking Faced To Life-cycle Management

The identification and information tracking of materials and frocks are the key technologies of stock management and production process management. It is difficult to identify and trace materials and frocks (especially for tools&WIPs) due to the characters of production process. On the other hand the scheduling and dispatching of workshop mostly depend on the real-time feedback information of materials and frocks. Due to lack of accurate and sufficient real-time feedback information, the effect and efficiency of MES are greatly restricted.This paper has introduced a new method on tool's marking and identification, which can mark barcode on tool's surface directly with laser. Based on a large amount of experiments, it first ascertained the marking process parameters on tools of various materials/shapes/surface colors/surface roughness/dimensions, then it discussed the influence factors of scratch/abrasion/smear/storage on identification reliability, the influence factors of barcode depth / barcode roughness / area of heat-treatment on surface quality, the influence factors of marking position/barcode dimension/barcode depth on identification velocity. At last, it analyzed the change of tool's fatigue life and dynamic balance based on metallographic structure image/fatigue experiments and dynamic balance experiments. It shows that this method is suitable for tool's direct marking, it is reliable and has no influence on tool's mechanical character. The research has established a solid base for engineering application.This paper has also brought forth the information collection methods of barcode identification instrument, tool pre-adjust equipment and various NC lathes. The information collection of NC lathes is the most difficult technology, the paper has researched several methods such as appending macroinstructions, appending trigger programs, submitting records on time etc.. They all relied on a common DNC software platform—Cimco DNC-MAX.In the facet of information integration on tool life-cycle management, this paper has brought forth two methods—XML middle document mode and view mode. As an example, it defined the mapping relationships of tool resource model between tool management platform and CAPP/DNC system, integrated tool's process information and status information of various application systems.At the basis of the key technologies researched above, this paper has adopted Object-Oriented technology,module technology,J2EE standard framework and modeling tools such as IDEFO and UML to establish the resource model, process model, function model and developed the main function modules of tool life-cycle management system.This paper pays emphasis on tool's life-cycle tracking and management, has solved several key technologies such as tool resource sorting and modeling, tool direct marking, information collection of production process, integration of heterogeneous information etc.. Several results of the research have been applied and experimented in NC workshops of aerospace enterprise, it shows that tool life-cycle management based on direct marking and information tracking is validate and practicability.These researches can help obtain real-time feedback information of tools during production process, shorten tool's preparation time, improve the efficiency of tool's stock management, supply accurate and real-time feedback information demanded for planning layer and manufacturing execution layer of enterprise. These researches also have a significant meaning on the construction of numerical product line and improve agile manufacturing capability of plant.