Reinforcement-bar manufacture: From design to optimized production

An integrated system which automates the design and manufacture of rebars (reinforcement bars) is described. The system has four modules: Design, data extraction, production planning and an NC production. The rebar design process can be accomplished using customized semi-automated functions in a graphic system, or by conventional computer aided design. The data extraction module automatically extracts the data needed for manufacturing from the graphic design database. This rebar data is analysed to create an optimal rebar manufacturing plan, and convert it into a series of control programmes which can be automatically transferred to the rebar manufacturing machines. Thus all the manual data manipulation stages of traditional rebar design and production (detailing, documentation, data extraction, etc.) are avoided, reducing the potential for errors, and saving data input costs. The optimized production planning results in reduction of material scrap on machines which use discrete bars as raw material. The automatic creation and transfer of the rebar programme to the machine controller saves considerable set-up time between different production batches. Consequently, the integrated CAD/ CAM system described here leads to cost reduction together with increased quality.