Abstract Tool sequence selection is an important activity
in process-planning for milling and has great bearing on
the cost of machining. Currently, it is accomplished manually
without consideration of cost factors a priori. Typically,
a large tool is selected to quickly generate the rough
shape and a smaller clearing tool is used to generate the netshape.
In this paper, we present a new systematic method to
select the optimal sequence of tool(s), to machine a 2.5-axis
pocket given pocket geometry, a database of cutting tools,
cutting parameters, and tool holder geometry. Algorithms
have been developed to calculate the geometric constructs
such as accessible areas, and pocket decomposition, while
considering tool holders. A Genetic Algorithm (GA) formulation
is used to find the optimal tool sequence. Two types of
selection mechanisms namely “Elitist selection” and “Roulette
method” are tested. It is found that the Elitist method
converges much faster than the Roulette method. The proposed
method is compared to a shortest-path graph formulation
that was developed previously by the authors. It is
found that the GA formulation generates near optimal solutions
while reducing computation by up to 30% as compared
to the graph formulation.