Machining is one of the most important manufacturing processes, which remove unwanted material in the form of chips from a workpiece. Material removal operations are among the most expensive; in the United States alone, more than $100 billion were spent on machining in 1999. These high costs put tremendous economic pressures on production managers and engineers as they struggle to find ways to increase productivity (Ref 3, p.v).

Machining processes are performed on a wide variety of machine tools. The primary chip formation processes are turning, milling, drilling, shaping, and abrasive machining. The majority of industrial applications of machining are in metals. In spite of their complexity, metal cutting processes are widespread in the industrial world. Metal cutting processes consist of independent or input variables and dependent variables.

Independent (input) variables are:

• Workpiece materials

• Cutting tool materials and geometry

• Cutting parameters

Machine tool operators and manufacturing engineers have direct control over the independent variables and select them when setting up the machining process.

Dependent variables are:

• Cutting forces

• Power consumption

• Surface finish

• Cutting tool conditions

Dependent variables are determined by the machining process based on the prior selection of the independent variables. Therefore, manufacturing personnel do not have direct control over dependent variables.

Workpiece materials (one of the independent variables) have been described by Edmund Isakov in the book published in 2000 (Ref 4). Dependent variables: Cutting forces and Power consumption were described in the book and software by Edmund...