Abstract
This paper presents the use of an evert system to automate process planning of block assembly, a task that is usually completed manually. In order to determine the sequence of assembly operation, a search method guided by rules, such as merging of related operations, grouping of similar operations, and precedence rules based on know-hows and geometrical reasoning, is used. In this paper, the expert system developed is explained in detail regarding a global database, control strategies, and rule bases. For verification purposes, the evert system has been applied to simple examples. Since the rule bases are isolated from the inference engine in the developed system, it is easy to add more rules in the future.