Assigning operations to different processes

Depending on how you have customized your routing, you also may need to manually assign operations on specific GCDs to different processes.

For example, you may have added a second instance of a “2Axis Lathe” process, so that roughing of curved wall GCDs can occur on the first lathe and finishing of the curved wall GCDs can occur on the second lathe. By default, all operations are assigned to the first instance of a process, so you will need to manually assign the finishing operations to the second lathe process.

To manually assign GCD operations to another process

1 In the Manufacturing Process pane, click on the + symbols to expand the process nodes of interest (in this example, you would see a node named “2 Axis Lathe” and another node named “2 Axis Lathe:2”).

2 Each process node will have sub-nodes representing the operations assigned to that process and the GCDs they are being performed on. (In this example, you would see that the first “2 Axis Lathe” node contains a Rough Turning node and a Finish Turning node, each with Curved Wall GCDs under them. The second lathe process “2 Axis Lathe:2” would not initially have any operations or GCDs under it, as all operations are by default performed on the first lathe).

3 For each operation/GCD pair of interest, click on the GCD node and drag-and-drop it onto the new process node (In this example, you would click on a curved wall GCD located under the Finish Turning node and drag it from the “2 Axis Lathe” node onto the “2 Axis Lathe:2”). You can multi-select GCDs or GCD/Operation pairs to drag by holding down the Ctrl-key. If you are unable to drop the operation/GCD pair on the process node of interest, see Note: below.

4 The Manufacturing Process pane will update to reflect how GCDs/operations are now assigned. (In this example, you will now see a Finish Turning node under the “2 Axis Lathe:2” process, and a curved wall GCD under it indicating that curved wall is now being finished on the second lathe.) Continue dragging-and-dropping until all operations/GCDs are assigned to the appropriate lathe processes.

If you are unable to drop the operation/GCD pair on the process node of interest, you may also need to change or edit the Operation Sequence routing.

Building on the earlier example, if you customize the process routing to insert a new 3 Axis Lathe process (instead of the second 2 Axis Lathe) following the original 2 Axis Lathe process, you will not initially be able to drag curved wall operations to the 3 Axis Lathe. This happens because the currently-selected operation sequence for the curved wall does not contain 3 Axis Lathe operations. To fix this, open the Operation Sequence Selection window for the GCD(s) of interest and select an operation sequence that includes the 3 Axis Lathe. In other examples, you may need to customize the Operation Sequence to include the processes that were added to the part routing. For more information on customizing operation sequences, see Creating a custom operation sequence on page 1.