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Back-propagation artificial neural propagation
network approach for machining ANN approach
centre selection
315
Boppana V. Chowdary
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Received June 2005
Faculty of Engineering, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Revised January 2006
Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies Accepted March 2006
Abstract
Purpose – Traditional machining centre selection methods may not guarantee a cost effective
solution. Properly trained back-propagation artificial neural network (BPANN) tend to select
reasonable machining centres when presented with machining parameters that they have never seen
before. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the applicability of artificial neural networks (ANNs) to
machine centre selection problems.
Design/methodology/approach – A three-layer feedforward back-propagation supervised
training approach is selected to address the machining centre selection problem and demonstrated
its potential through an example. This is intended to help readers understand implications on
manufacturing system design and future research.
Findings – Very limited studies attempted the machining centre selection problem. Feedforward
ANN approach has been applied to a wide variety of manufacturing problems. Neural networks have
training capability to solve problems that are difficult for conventional computers or human beings.
The developed BPANN model has potential to solve the machine centre selection problem with notable
consistency and reasonable accuracy.
Practical implications – The BPANN model is an innovative approach fundamentally based on
artificial intelligence, which is not directly visible to the user, but is able to solve through a simpler and
supervised feedforward back-propagation training process. The model consists of an input layer,
a hidden layer and an output layer. The 18 neurons fixed in the input layer are same as the set of
machining centre parameters which are taken directly from the machine tool manufacturer’s
catalogues. Evidently the proposed three-layer ANN model has the capability of solving the machine
centre selection problem with three hidden neurons for threshold level of 0.9, noise level of 0.05 and
tolerance of 0.01.
Originality/value – The work size, weight, travel range, spindle speed range, horse power, feed,
accuracy, tool magazine and price are used as machining centre selection parameters. Machining
centres’ information in the form of 24 patterns along with the desired machining centres’ were used to
train and test the network.
Keywords Artificial intelligence, Neural nets, Machining centres, Training, Manufacturing systems
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Selection of a proper machining centre is an important task in the design of a flexible Journal of Manufacturing Technology
manufacturing system, and thus, a crucial step for facilities planning. Thus, the Management
Vol. 18 No. 3, 2007
pp. 315-332
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The author wishes to thank the referees for their detailed comments and constructive criticisms 1741-038X
of the initial draft. DOI 10.1108/17410380710730648
JMTM importance of machining centre selection cannot be overlooked. Addition of a proper
18,3 machining centre in the production system can enhance the effectiveness of the
manufacturing process, provide effective utilization of manpower, increase production,
and improve system flexibility. However, with a wide range of machining centres
available today, selection of an appropriate machining centre alternative for a given
production scenario is not an easy task.
316 Decisions in design and selection of manufacturing systems are affected by the
ongoing development of new production facilities, practices and enhanced capabilities in
the market place and complex characteristics of the product. The machining centre
selection problem influences by operational capabilities in terms of various part design
features, performance measures set by the customer and then cost. The elicited
hierarchy (Wick, 1979; Varma and Kumar, 1989; Peter, 1990; Machinery and Production
Engineering, 1995) in selection of a machining centre is a suitable working length,
working diameter, achievable tolerance, number of axes, number of tool stations, price,
level of available power, speed, and automatic swarf disposal. Generally, selection
in terms of these multiple attributes cannot be easily attained with usual programming
tools. For this reason, the research studies in this field are progressively directed toward
the use of new approaches and methods developed in the AI world: knowledge-based
systems, fuzzy logic, inductive learning, neural networks (NN), and genetic algorithms.
This paper describes the applicability of artificial neural network (ANN) approach
to machining centre selection problem. This tool, in fact, introduces an innovative
approach fundamentally based on a knowledge not directly visible by the user, but
able to be stored through a simpler and more intuitive training process. The reasons for
using NN to solve the machining centre selection problem are: processing speed,
processing order, abundance and complexity, knowledge storage, and processing
control (Arad and El-Awawy, 1997). The paper proceeds as follows: a review of
literature is provided to identify the lack of research to demonstrate the ANN’s
applicability to solve the machining centre selection problem. The machining centre
selection problem is demonstrated in the following section. Then, the results and
discussion are presented. Finally, conclusions are given.
Review of literature
During the last two decades, a number of developments have been reported in
knowledge-based systems, fuzzy logic, inductive learning, NN and genetic algorithms
(Pham and Pham, 2000). ANN, one application of AI, has achieved considerable
success in recent years and opened a new dimension for scientific research and
industrial/business applications. Evidently this approach has been applied to several
areas in engineering and manufacturing. With the ready availability of high memory
and affordable computers now, there is a considerable potential for the extension
of ANN approach to solve challenging problems like machining centre selection.
The purpose of this section here is to describe the background principles of ANN and
to document some applications of ANN to manufacturing.
Designers relying on personal experience tend to select the machining centres with
which they are most familiar, however, the choice may not be the cost-effective
machining centre. Machining centre vendors have an inherent interest in selling their
machinery, so their recommendations might sometimes be biased. On the other hand,
consultants often charge substantial amounts for their recommendations and for the
time they spend on evaluations. Thus, these traditional machining centre selection
methods/options may not guarantee a cost-effective solution. The study of Gerrard
(1988) reveals that the role of engineering staff in authorization for final selection of
machining centre is 6 per cent, the rest belongs to upper and middle management. It is
evident that there is scope to apply ANN approach to machining centre selection
problem due to the following:
.
Availability of limited traditional tools to assist the facilities design engineer.
. Attempts have been made to apply ANN approach to several manufacturing
applications such as process planning, product design and analysis, process and
JMTM machine diagnosis, analysis of grinding operations and machine maintenance
18,3 analysis.
.
Time consuming and knowledge intensive iterative process.
The ANN model developed in this paper involves understanding of the key machining
centre options include job capacity, travel range, tool changer capacity, tool change
320 time, spindle speed and power, feed, accuracy, type of control system, and price.
The major steps of the proposed approach are:
(1) construction of a three-layer feedforward back-propagation artificial neural
network (BPANN) model;
(2) preparation of the training and testing patterns;
(3) supervised-learning and feedforward back-propagation training; and
(4) testing of the model output.
Work
Length Width Type of Control System Price
Input Layer …
Weights
Hidden Layer …
Weights
1 Work length
2 Width
3 Thickness
4 Weight
5 Travel range in x-direction
6 Travel range in y-direction
7 Travel range in z-direction
8 Number of cutting tools
9 Maximum diameter of cutting tool
10 Maximum length of cutting tool
11 Tool change time
12 Spindle power
13 Spindle rpm
14 Feed rate
15 Accuracy (positional)
16 Accuracy (repeatability)
17 Type of control system
18 Price
Output neuron (Oi ¼ 1-4) Machining centre
Study code Type Table I.
1 MC01 Vertical CNC Machining centre
2 MC02 Horizontal CNC parameters, input and
3 MC03 Vertical CNC output neurons selected
4 MC04 Vertical CNC in the study
18,3
322
selection
Table II.
JMTM
selection
Training patterns used
Table III.
323
JMTM applied to its input layer. The network generates the output. This output is used to
18,3 determine the network performance and no back-propagation is carried out. The
network’s output is compared with the desired outputs. These input data sets and the
desired outputs are collectively known as test patterns. The input values have been
coded with numerical values ranging between 0 and 1 in order to give a contribution to
the network independent from their real absolute values.
324
Supervised learning and back-propagation training
Supervised learning is a process that incorporates an external teacher and/or global
information. This process decides when to turn off the learning, how long and how often to
present each association for training, and it also supplies performance error information.
Supervised learning and back-propagation training algorithm proposed by Simpson
(1989) has been used in the study to adjust the weights of the network systematically such
that the error between the output and the corresponding desired output is minimum. Also
it maps new, never-before seen information (i.e. customer requirements for machining
centre) entering the input layer to the nearest machining centre at the output layer.
The actual training of the network is accomplished by “back-propagating” the error from
the output layer to the hidden layer and finally to the input layer. The error is simply the
difference between the desired output and the output calculated during training.
System optimality
Once the default NN is trained, its parameters need to be optimized to yield an
optimum performance. The changes made in the network parameters such hidden
neurons, input noise, learning rate and tolerance and the corresponding results
obtained are shown in Table IV. The first step towards system optimality is changing
the number of hidden neurons. Changing the number of hidden neurons subsequently
changes the number of total weights. Hence, they have to be reinitialized and the new
network has to be trained. If the new network is trained and the hidden neurons are
further reduced then the network needs to be retrained with the reduced number of
hidden neurons. In this way an initial number of 10 in the default network is reduced to
three hidden neurons. Next the input noise and the back-propagation learning rate are
varied and experimentation continued. During the investigation, the optimal network
was found at the noise level of 0.05 and minimum tolerance of 0.07.
(Desired Output
N
Increase – Actual Output) ≤
Training Patterns Specified Accuracy
Yes
No (Desired Output
Yes
Figure 2. – Actual Output) ≤ Stop
Flow chart for machining Specified Accuracy
centre selection using
BPANN approach
network, various patterns (Table II), have been applied to the network. The output
generated from the neural network model is compared to the desired output. The
network output and the desired output against the respective pattern numbers are listed.
User selected
propagation
specifications/test data
Back-
Table V.
327
JMTM
Pattern No. Feed (ipm) Accuracy (inches) Control system Price (US $)
18,3
1 0-200 0.00022 0.00011 CNC 440,960
2 0-240 0.00025 0.00095 CNC 65,000
3 0-230 0.00020 0.00010 CNC 140,000
4 0-200 0.00022 0.00011 CNC 445,000
328 5 0-240 0.00025 0.00095 CNC 405,000
6 0-230 0.00020 0.00010 CNC 425,000
7 0-220 0.000215 0.00020 NC 482,000
8 0-210 0.00026 0.00090 NC 475,000
9 0-240 0.00020 0.00010 NC 65,000
10 0-220 0.000215 0.00020 NC 360,000
11 0-210 0.00026 0.00090 NC 408,000
12 0-240 0.00020 0.00010 NC 500,000
13 0.5-300 ^0.0010 ^0.0003 CNC 445,000
14 0.5-290 ^0.0010 ^0.0003 CNC 124,000
15 0.5-250 ^0.0010 ^0.0003 CNC 130,000
16 0.5-300 ^0.0010 ^0.0003 CNC 650,000
17 0.5-290 ^0.0010 ^0.0003 CNC 745,000
18 0.5-250 ^0.0010 ^0.0003 CNC 060,400
19 0.01-380 ^0.00024 ^0.00014 CNC 438,000
20 0.01-400 ^0.00026 ^0.0009 CNC 475,000
21 0.5-300 ^0.00010 ^0.0003 CNC 058,500
Table VI. 22 0.01-380 ^0.00024 ^0.00014 CNC 115,000
User selected 23 0.01-400 ^0.00026 ^0.0009 CNC 132,000
specifications/test data 24 0.5-300 ^0.00010 ^0.0003 CNC 150,000
performs poorly on the validating set, it is assumed that there is some important
information in the validating data set, which the network was unable to learn. The
patterns with large deviations against their desired output are then added to the training
set and the network is retrained using the new set of training patterns. This process of
training and validation is repeated until the performance of the trained network on the
validating set is acceptable.
level of 0.9, mf of 0.9, learning rate of 2, tolerance of 0.01 and without adding any
noise to it (Table VIII). This outcome tells that the NN needs to be validated with
some additional machining centre information, which has not been used in the
earlier training process. Thus, the study has shown that a properly developed ANN
model provides a valid alternative for solving the machining centre selection
problem.
The BPANN model demonstrated in this paper is an innovative approach
fundamentally based on AI which is not directly visible to the user, but able to solve
through a simpler and supervised feedforward back-propagation training process.
This was carried out through training examples directly taken from the machine tool
manufacturer’s catalogues. The advantages of this approach, in comparison with other
programming methods, are:
.
there is no need to know the explicit function for selecting a suitable machining
centre for a user set specifications; and
.
capable of accomplishing the selection of machining centres in a short computing
time.
The potential of ANN as a machining centre selection tool is usually based on a large
sample size. The generalization capabilities of ANNs are highly dependent on the
number of patterns in the training set. Hence, there is scope to train and test
the BPANN model based on further larger sample size in the future. Also it could be
JMTM
Suggested machining centre
18,3 Pattern No. Network output Desired output Network output Desired output
1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 MC02 MC02
2 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 MC02 MC02
3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 MC03 MC01
330 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 MC01 MC01
5 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 MC02 MC02
6 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 MC02 MC02
7 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 MC03 MC03
8 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 MC03 MC03
9 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 MC03 MC01
10 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 MC01 MC01
11 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 MC04 MC04
12 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 MC04 MC04
13 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 MC03 MC03
14 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 MC03 MC03
15 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 MC04 MC04
16 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 MC04 MC04
Table VIII. 17 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 MC03 MC01
Results generated for 18 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 MC02 MC02
BPANN model for 19 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 MC01 MC01
threshold level of 0.9 and 20 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 MC03 MC03
noise level of 0.0 21 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 MC02 MC02
(mf ¼ 0.9, 22 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 MC03 MC03
tolerance ¼ 0.01, and 23 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 MC04 MC04
learning rate ¼ 2) 24 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 MC04 MC04
interesting to the researchers to compare the performance of ANN approach with other
association rules or decision tree models (e.g. classification and regression tree)
especially to examine whether ANN approach has any superiority in solving machine
centre selection problem.
With respect to the other modelling tools for machining centre selection, IF-THEN
rules often used in knowledge-based expert systems have the remarkable advantage of
representing the knowledge with simple and independent structures. Continuing
research is now being directed towards the development of knowledge-based neural
system to demonstrate the potential of machining centre selection using several rules
such as flexibility, quality and productivity.
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learn arbitrary mappings”, Neural Networks, Vol. 3, pp. 535-49.
Corresponding author
Boppana V. Chowdary can be contacted at: chowdary@eng.uwi.tt