PROCESS PLANNING ESTABLISHES THE MAPPING BETWEEN THE DESIGN ENGINEER'S INTENT AND THE MANUFACTURING PROCESSES REQUIRED TO PRODUCE THE DESIRED PART. A PROCESS PLAN SPECIFIES THE OPERATIONS TO BE PERFORMED AND THEIR SEQUENCE, THE ASSOCIATED TOOLING AND MACHINE, AND THE OPERATION'S PARAMETERS. RECENT DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS UTILIZING KNOWLEDGE BASED ENGINEERING (KBE) TECHNOLOGIES HAVE ADVANCED THE LEVEL OF COMPUTER AUTOMATION IN COMPUTER-AIDED PROCESS PLANNING (CAPP) SYSTEMS. THIS REPORT EXAMINES TWO ALTERNATIVE IMPLEMENTATION PERSPECTIVES FOR A KBE PROCESS PLANNING SYSTEM. A GENERIC PROCESS PLANNING FRAMEWORK IS DEFINED AND TWO CAPP SYSTEMS USING DIFFERENT IMPLEMENTATION APPROACHES ARE DESCRIBED. THE INHERENT ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE APPROACHES ARE IDENTIFIED.