Production control with capability and/or manufacturer comparison

A method for controlling sheet metal processing of a sheet metal component to be manufactured with a plurality of processing steps, wherein the method comprises:

• A) reading in machine tool data and data of the sheet metal component to be manufactured, wherein the following operations are carried out in any desired order or simultaneously in step A):
• a) reading in the plurality of 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 machine tools;
• and
• d) reading in capability parameters of the machine tools;
• B) creating a machine tool matrix comprising the machine tools suitable for manufacturing the sheet metal component, and carrying out the following operations:
• e) comparing the processing steps of operation a) with the at least one basic processing capability of operation c),
• f) for cases in which the at least one basic processing capability fulfils the processing steps, comparing the property parameters of operation b) with the capability parameters of operation d), and
• g) including one or more of the machine tools in the machine tool matrix based on a determination that the one or more machine tools have capability parameters that fulfil the property parameters,
• wherein operations e), f) and g) are carried out successively or simultaneously for the machine tools;
• C) determining an optimized processing sequence in a form of a sequence of machine tools from the machine tool matrix;
• and
• D) causing the sheet metal component to be manufactured based on the optimized processing sequence,
• wherein the processing steps in operation a) are based on tolerances of the sheet metal component taken from a 3D model of the sheet metal component to be manufactured or tolerances of the sheet metal component which are saved in a drawing of the sheet metal component to be manufactured.