Computer Aided Production Engineering (CAPE) as Subsystem of CIM

The enabling technologies for CAPE (Computer Aided of Production Engineering) emerged in the mid-’80s. Simulation, off-line programming, advanced graphics, motion emulation and powerful computers to support them all matured to the extend that CAPE technology could be brought into economically justifiable use. Introduction In the start of this millenium was changed old products by new, especially in mechanical engineering, thus slow that one product could be produced some decades with little changes. During this long time the new product might be in quiet prepared. Although in this time are in centre of attention efforts to produce a quality products with a long lifetime, especially with regards to environmental problematics, a big mechanical products are out of date and insaleable after 6 to 8 years. In consumer goods it is much fomerly, after 2 to 3 years. Effort to abbreviate the cycles of change productions and to increase value and sophistication of product enforce the change in technical preparation of manufacture and in realisation of manufacture. Number of new designed and inovated products in present industry is big and it is obvious that with complication and improving of technical solutions, it will magnify. The important rationalization method in stage of production preparing and production realization is using of computer techniques with suitable software. It is interested in products design, in design of machine tools and systems, where it is possible to use computers devices as basic work tool. The computers quickly penetrate to all areas of technical production preparing and to production activities. The using of computers, which was firstly aimed to scientific and technical calculations in isolated problems, was increased to other areas by graphical outskirts devices. There was created the base of new disciplines of automatized construction and technological works, where the familiar are Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) [1]. History of Computer Aided of Production Engineering In the early 1990s, due to the economic recession, more industrial firmss worldwide suffered a severe downturn in bussines. In the mid-’90s, with a renewed and booming, customer-driven market, business success is contingent upon coming to market faster with new products and building up output to meet the increasing demand. The automotive industry was one of the first industries to respond quickly to consumers diverse tastes and products shorter life cycles. On example the average development cycle of a vehicle was reduced from seven to five years, with three years as the current goal. But this goal cannot be achieved by compromising on quality: in todays competitive market, quality is no longer a selling feature but a basic element of any product. Thus, manufacturers have begun to look closely at their current methods and examine how they can increase their products offering while meeting three major challenges: shorter time to market, increased quality and lower manufacturing costs. a) Shorter time to market. Shorter time to market requires more efficient and productive development tools. The same work needs to be done, not only quicker, but also with fewer errors. Design have to be "first time right" and efforts should be made towards catching errors up front and eliminating rework. Moreover, manufacturers can no longer afford to walk consecutively through the development phases, to make significant progress, they must make large strides towards concurrent engineering. These changes involve greater development risk, and tools to minimize these risks must be readily available. Standardizing the manufacturing tools will also reduce time to market, as it will eliminate lengthy redesigns, speed up production ramp-up time and reduce downtime through better maintenance. b) Increased quality. Increased quality requires verification and analysis of the manufacturing processes to check that they comply with design intent. In addition, an optimized design of the manufacturing process delivers savings in process cycle time. This time may be used to enhance the manufacturing process in order to increase the products quality. c) Cost savings. Cost savings can be generated through productivity gains, reduced capital investment, better allocation of manpower, efficient management of design changes and reduced overheads. To decide where to invest to gain competitive edge, we have to study the impact of each investment on the complete development and manufacturing process. Over the past few years, manufaturers invested heavily in the two ends of the industrial process: the product design phase by install CAD systems the production phase by application of automated devices. But as these automated tools become industrial standards, manufacturers have to look elsewhere to maintain improvement and competitive edge. This is the reason why many top manufacturers are increasing their use of Computer Aided Production Engineering (CAPE) tools as part of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) represent the integration of traditional production and engineering technologies with the computer technology, which enable the automation all activities from product design to their expedition (design of products, creation of technological procedures, production planning, operative control, manufacturing of products, quality control, assembly, packaging, expedition, etc.), with goal to bring down of the material and energy pretension, to increase of work productivity, to bring down of supplies, to shorten of development and production time, to increase of time and power utilize of production devices and ti increase of products quality [1, 3]. The complex computer integration is not only goal or in many firms it is reality. bring down of computer components prices and increase of computer power in unite with modern software technologies, new methods of firm organisation, new progresive technologies condition orientation on modern information and communication technologies in many firms. The CIM systems in most cases is not represented by complex wholes, or they are compile by integration of partial automatized systems CA systems (Computer Aided Systems), composition which is shown on Fig. 1 [5].