The technological process route is also referred to as the production route, in other words, a work plan, a detailed structured description of activities within the technological process. A technological process route describes the sequence of actions necessary to produce a part, machine or device. The full description of the production route includes the individual definition of each technological operation (instruction card). Each route concerns one component or machine and device, although with a generalized approach, after introducing the necessary modifications, it can be used to manufacture other components of the same class of parts [1]. It should be emphasized that there is not only and only one appropriate technological process for a given production of a given part. In almost every case, it is possible to develop several variants of the technological process, including various technological routes. The multivariate nature of the technological process depends on the possessed production resources (primarily technological machines, tools, technological capabilities, as well as logistics issues, including the number of machine tools and setting up technological machines in production halls, or types of transport to subcontractors).

According to [2], the production route includes the determination of times from the technological times standard. Specifying the production route is a complete documentation of the technological process (technological card, instruction cards for each technological operation, time standard cards). In the engineering industry, the term production route or technological process is rarely used. The term “technological process” is in common use in technology studies at universities and in the metal and machine industry. It is within this term that the full description of the technological process functions. In the didactic context, the term “technological process route” is used, which in fact does not exist in the technological documentation. However, it plays an important role in the education process, be it at technical faculties of universities or secondary vocational schools, and is a shortened diagram of the technological process. What data are to be included is a contractual issue. The minimum content should include the following data:

• technological operation number;
• a full technological sketch for a given technological operation – symbols of fixing and fixing and the correct dimensions;
• machining station.

The extended version of the technological process route includes:

• technological operation number;
• verbal description of technological treatments;
• a full technological sketch for a given technological operation – symbols of fixing and fixing and the correct dimensions;
• machine tool (machining stations).

Figure 1 shows a scan of a fragment of the illustrative route of the technological process. The technological process route should first of all describe the course of the process step by step, technological operation after technological operation. The sketches may include a verbal description of technological operations, but at the stage of route development it is not necessary.

The technological route can in principle be prepared in any way, by hand or with the use of CAD software. However, in each of these cases the route should be legible and provide an unambiguous description.

Fig. 1. Illustrative fragment of the technological process route.

The technological process route plays a key role in the exercises during which participants are to develop the technological process of a given part. Only on the basis of the approved variant of the technological route, instruction cards and time standard cards are developed.

This post describes the route of the technological process in the context of the production process using conventional technological machines. Modern documentation of technological processes may use paper documentation, but dedicated software and IT systems are more often used for this purpose – incl. CAM and PLM. It is difficult to assume that the supervision over NC programs for CNC machine tools in the paper version is appropriate. It should be emphasized that each production company has its own patterns and rules for creating and maintaining technological documentation. More precisely, in real industrial conditions, there are also production plants where the technological documentation is not kept or is kept unreliably. In such situations, most often all technological knowledge, including production management, is the domain of one or several people. Thus, such people become a strategic resource, without which it will not be possible to conduct production activities.

Technological operation number

In the case of conventional, only paper, technological documentation, the method of numbering subsequent technological operations was adopted every 10. Thanks to this, it was much easier to introduce modifications in the course of the process by adding a new technological operation. A new technological operation between operations, e.g. 20 and 30, took the number 25.

Technological sketch

The workpiece is sketched with a thin or thick line, and the surfaces processed in a given technological operation with a thick or very thick line, respectively, to be clearly marked. The given dimensions refer only to the surfaces processed in a given technological operation and at least one must be determined from the adopted main machining contact base. On the technological sketch, we also draw technological symbols that define the method of fixing the workpiece. In the case of an in-process technical inspection operation, there is no need for a sketch. It is considered sufficient to just mention that such an operation occurs in a given place. Additionally, it is possible to define numerically which dimension or dimensions (roughness) are to be verified.

Not every technological operation requires a technological sketch. In the case of technical control operations, its basic description is the technical control card, developed for each technological operation in which planned measurements of geometric quantities are carried out. Consequently, the route only describes the technical control operation in words.

Machining station

Defining the machining station is aimed at improving the selection of production resources. In the simplified version, only a general term such as a turning station is given. A specific type of technological machine (machine tools) should be given many times, e.g. a production lathe (fig. 1). Sometimes the available machinery stock is given in advance. Then a specific model of a technological machine (machine tool) should be selected.

Sources

1. Chrobot J., Konfigurowalne systemy sterowania przepływem produkcji
2. Zych A., Projektowanie procesów technologicznych Instytut Technologii Eksploatacji – Państwowy Instytut Badawczy, 2005
3. https://mfiles.pl/pl/index.php/Marszruta
4. https://optimes.syneo.pl/blog/marszruta-produkcyjna-technologiczna/
5. Morek R., own teaching materials