Traditional bottleneck diagnosis of production lines mainly relies on the designer's experience, theoretical calculation or data analysis after practical system run. There are some disadvantages of the traditional bottleneck diagnosis for production lines. Using the virtual manufacturing technologies, a novel Simulation Diagnosis methodology about the Bottleneck of Production Lines (SDBPL) has been presented. With the proposed method, an existed production line is modeled, simulated and analyzed. Its bottleneck is quickly diagnosed by some ways such as visual simulation results, cycle time, machine utilization and labor utilization. Results reveal that SDBPL can find the location of bottleneck in the practical production lines without wasting practical resource because the entire course of the diagnosis for bottleneck is implemented in virtual environment, and SDBPL is quicker than that of traditional methods as well.

Industry is looking for practical means to improve the accuracy of the parts machined on CNC machines. Some artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been applied in modeling and compensating manufacturing process errors in CNC machining. However, these systems are not capable of predicting the results of a new operation if no sufficient data on a number of similar operations is available. A generalized AI approach named synergistic interactions amongst modeling, sensing and learning is proposed in this paper. Based on the AI approach, a new strategy of error compensation of workpiece dimension in CNC machining is developed and applied in a CNC turning center. Error compensation results are illustrated the effectiveness of the error compensation strategy. The learning curve shows that the error compensation confidence gradually progresses towards 100% confidence from zero along with the CNC machine operation time increasing.

High-speed machining has received much attention as a technological solution for high productivity to increase economic efficiency in manufacturing. This paper gives a brief overview of HSC technology and presents current progress in high performance machining of cast iron. High speed milling of cast iron experiments are carried out with ceramic and PCBN tools. Tool wears are examined through an optical-electronic microscope and the wear mechanism is analyzed. The influences of cutting speed on cutting forces are presented. The experimental results show that the cutting forces increase with the cutting speed at the lower speed range. After the cutting speed gets to the critical value, increases of the cutting speed cause decreases of the cutting force components. The research results will be great benefit to the control of process of high-speed milling of castiron.

根据加工工件来优化选择刀具，包括刀具材料、刀具几何参数、刀具结构、切削参数和机床等切削数据，将关系到生产效率、生产成本及加工质量。建立切削数据库，向机械制造业提供合理或优化的切削用量，是增强企业竞争力最有效的措施之一。本文结合国内外切削数据库研究开发现状，探讨建立切削数据库的核心技术，分析切削数据库研究及应用过程中存在的问题，着重探讨切削数据库的发展趋势，指出切削数据库未来的研究方向将是集成化、智能化、实用化、网络化和标准化。