Digital factory technology is an advanced manufacturing technology served as to establish a bridge between the process of product development and manufacturing. In terms of application for digital factory technology in machining, especially in machining of a complicated part such as a cylinder body part, a concept of digital process planning and its framework are proposed. Its components including machining domain knowledge model, machining knowledge base, machining resource base and process planning system are studied. A machining knowledge model in tree form and an object-driven knowledge reasoning mechanism are used for machining knowledge base. The process planning system is a user interface that leads a planner to finish the planning process. A case about a cylinder head part is given to demonstrate how the platform works. The framework of digital process planning is the foundation of some intelligent CAPP systems and helps to production line planning.