A selection support device that supports selection of a work machine to be used for work from among a plurality of work machines, the selection support device including: a history information acquisition unit configured to acquire history information on a use history of each work machine; a specifying unit configured to specify a degree of use of each work machine based on the history information; and a selection unit configured to preferentially select a work machine with a small degree of use as a work machine to be used for work.

A method controls sheet metal processing of a sheet metal component to be manufactured with a plurality of processing steps. The method includes: A) reading in machine tool data and data of the sheet metal component to be manufactured, which includes (in any order): a) reading in the processing steps of the sheet metal component to be manufactured; b) reading in property parameters of the sheet metal component to be manufactured; c) reading in at least one basic processing capability of the machine tools; and d) reading in capability parameters of the machine tools. The method also includes B) creating a machine tool matrix made from machine tools suitable for manufacturing the sheet metal component; C) determining an optimized processing sequence in a form of a sequence of machine tools from the machine tool matrix; and D) outputting the optimized processing sequence.

An information processing apparatus that manages information about a plurality of modeling apparatuses each of which models a three-dimensional object acquires setting information indicating a setting for modeling to a modeling apparatus having received an instruction for modeling of an object, acquires performance information indicating a function concerning modeling that is able to be provided by an alternative modeling apparatus other than the modeling apparatus having received the instruction, determines whether the setting for modeling is able to be applied to the alternative modeling apparatus based on the acquired performance information about the alternative modeling apparatus in order to cause the alternative modeling apparatus to model the object concerning the instruction, and controls displaying of information indicating a result of determining whether the setting for modeling is able to be applied to the alternative modeling apparatus.

An assistance device configured to assist operations with respect to a plurality of machines is provided with: an information storage unit for storing machine information including at least one of maintenance history information, abnormality history information, and predicted service life information for each of the plurality of machines, in association with identification information of the machine; a criteria accepting unit for accepting search criteria for specifying desired machine information; and an information retrieval unit for comparing the search criteria accepted by the criteria accepting unit with the machine information stored in the information storage unit, and extracting the identification information of the machine corresponding to the machine information matching the search criteria.

A machining condition selecting device includes a machining condition contribution data management unit configured to manage machining condition contribution data in which each of a plurality of machining conditions is associated with a 3-dimensional surface roughness parameter and degrees of contribution to each item of a required condition related to productivity of a target product; a matter of priority acquisition unit configured to acquire a combination of the 3-dimensional surface roughness parameter and at least one item of the required condition as a matter of priority; and a machining condition selection data management unit configured to manage, for each of the plurality of machining conditions, machining condition selection data in which a combination pattern of the matters of priority is associated with a sum of the degrees of contribution to each item in the combination pattern.

Information representing an operating state of each of a plurality of robots, etc. operating under different operation conditions are retrieved and outputted. A retrieval system (1) includes; an acquisition means (24) for acquiring, from a plurality of machines (25) being used under respectively different operation conditions, information representing an operating state of each of the plurality of machines; an accumulation means (13) for accumulating information representing a plurality of operating states thus acquired; and a search means (12) for accepting search criteria for searching the information accumulated in the accumulation means (13), retrieving information representing an operating state agreeing with the search criteria from the accumulation means (13), and outputting a search result.

A selection support device that supports selection of a work machine to be used for work from among a plurality of work machines, the selection support device including: a history information acquisition unit configured to acquire history information on a use history of each work machine; a specifying unit configured to specify a degree of use of each work machine based on the history information; and a selection unit configured to preferentially select a work machine with a small degree of use as a work machine to be used for work.

A machining condition selecting device includes a machining condition contribution data management unit configured to manage machining condition contribution data in which each of a plurality of machining conditions is associated with a 3-dimensional surface roughness parameter and degrees of contribution to each item of a required condition related to productivity of a target product; a matter of priority acquisition unit configured to acquire a combination of the 3-dimensional surface roughness parameter and at least one item of the required condition as a matter of priority; and a machining condition selection data management unit configured to manage, for each of the plurality of machining conditions, machining condition selection data in which a combination pattern of the matters of priority is associated with a sum of the degrees of contribution to each item in the combination pattern.

Information representing an operating state of each of a plurality of robots, etc. operating under different operation conditions are retrieved and outputted. A retrieval system (1) includes; an acquisition means (24) for acquiring, from a plurality of machines (25) being used under respectively different operation conditions, information representing an operating state of each of the plurality of machines; an accumulation means (13) for accumulating information representing a plurality of operating states thus acquired; and a search means (12) for accepting search criteria for searching the information accumulated in the accumulation means (13), retrieving information representing an operating state agreeing with the search criteria from the accumulation means (13), and outputting a search result.

An information processing device includes: for each of a plurality of machine tools, a machine information database configured to store machine configuration information and tool information of each of the plurality of machine tools, in association with each of the plurality of machine tools; an information collection unit configured to collect and store the machine configuration information and the tool information into the machine information database; a manufacturing planning work information input unit configured to receive manufacturing planning work information; a machine information collation unit configured to collate the manufacturing planning work information with the machine configuration information and the tool information to give a score to each of the plurality of machine tools, based on a result of the collation; and an optimum machine selection unit configured to select an optimum machine tool for machining, based on the score given to each of the plurality of machine tools.