TABLE OF CONTENTS As with the material charts, the process charts of this chapter give an overview, but the number of processes that can be shown on any one of them is limited. Selection using them is practical when there are few constraints, but when there are many as there usually are checking that a given process meets them all is cumbersome, and the cost model cannot be presented in a useful way because of the need for user-defined parameters. All these problems are overcome in the CES implementation of the method.
Its database contains records for processes, organized into the families, classes and members shown in Figures 2.5 2.7 of Chapter 2. Each record contains attribute data for a process, with each attribute stored as a range spanning its usual values, and is linked to the records for the materials it can process. It also contains limited documentation in the form of text, images and references to sources of information about the process. The data are interrogated by the same search engine that is used for material selection, allowing superimposed stages like those suggested by Figure 18.18. On the left is a stage that limits the process choice to those able to handle a chosen material family, class or member (here, thermoplastics). In the center is a simple query interface for screening on one or more process attributes; the desired upper or lower limits for constrained attributes are entered and the search engine rejects all processes with attribute values...
