In recent years, manufacturing techniques have progressed very rapidly, and machine tools have become more integrated so that they are required to exhibit high productivity and economy in conventional workshops as well as in flexible manufacturing systems. Estimation of cost and productivity has become an important part of process planning activities. In Ref. [1-5], extensive research has been conducted to evaluate the machining economics problem and has produced many quantitative models for evaluating productivity and cost related to machining operations. Various optimization techniques have been applied to these quantitative models to determine the machining parameters that minimize the ...