The extensive use of CAD CAM is changing the way companies think, design and manufacture
Around the world, and especially in Asia, manufacturers are keenly looking at the next industrial revolution and one that involves innovation as the catalyst. The innovation also needs to redefine their path to success. Going by the maxim of ‘with great opportunities come great challenges’, the current manufacturing scenario is seeing multiple impactful factors at play. There is a kind of pressure to shorten time-to-market, design highly customisable and energy-efficient products and this is driving companies to rethink their manufacturing strategies.
To add to this, we live in a culture of instant gratification and immediate results. Continuous and consistent improvement is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. To win in this highly complex marketplace, we need to identify trends with the potential of optimising product development processes in order to maximise our advantage. Ming Xu, CAE marketing manager, Asia Pacific marketing, Siemens PLM Software, says that a great product is born well before the raw material reaches the machine. “High quality products start their journey from high quality designs. Virtual prototyping (the process of creating an optimal physical design in software before building a physical prototype for verification) is experiencing a widespread usage in today’s manufacturing processes.”
Th digital degree
Since the early 80s, there has been a rapid growth in the use of CAD/CAM technologies. This was made possible by the development of mass-produced silicon chips and the microprocessor. As the processing power of computers improved, the use of CAD/CAM broadened from large firms using large-scale mass production techniques to firms of all sizes.
The development of CAD and CAM and particularly the linkage between the two overcame traditional numerical control (NC) shortcomings in terms of expense, ease of use, and speed. It also enabled the design and manufacture of a part to be undertaken using the same system of encoding geometrical data. This innovation shortened the period between design and manufacture and greatly expanded the scope of production processes for which automated machinery could be economically used. Just as important, CAD/CAM gave the designer much more direct control over the production process, creating the possibility of completely integrated design and manufacturing processes.
Rajneesh Shinde, senior director, marketing, Asia-Pacific, Altair, says, “Manufacturers face multiple challenges in their design process. How can they ensure optimal or robust design for the given requirements which includes cost and use of materials? There’s also the issue of the time and cost in testing and validation. One needs to identify the best manufacturing process and ensure design compliance with those. This can be an iterative process.”
Modelling with CAD systems offers a number of advantages over traditional drafting methods that use rulers, squares, and compasses. For example, designs can be altered without erasing and redrawing. CAD systems also offer “zoom” features analogous to a camera lens, whereby a designer can magnify certain elements of a model to facilitate inspection. Computer models are typically three dimensional and can be rotated on any axis, much as one could rotate an actual three dimensional model in one’s hand, enabling the designer to gain a fuller sense of the object. CAD systems also lend themselves to modelling cutaway drawings, in which the internal shape of a part is revealed, and to illustrating the spatial relationships among a system of parts.
Early this year, Geometric Ltd, a global leader in 3D CNC machining software, announced the addition of automated manufacturing support for SOLIDWORKS MBD 2016 technical communication software, which provides product manufacturing information (PMI) and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) instructions in 3D, to its CAMWorks 2016 CNC machining application. These new capabilities for the joint SOLIDWORKS/CAMWorks CAD/CAM platform further streamline design and production processes, enabling a seamless transition from design to manufacturing for the first time in SOLIDWORKS design environments, as well as supporting drawingless design and manufacturing by eliminating the need to generate, store, and maintain 2D engineering drawings. “Automating the transition from design to manufacturing, allowing the information in the design model to automatically drive selections of tools and generation of tool paths, and helping manufacturers minimize their reliance on paper drawings have long been the future goals of CAD/CAM technology,” said Jim Foster, VP of global channel sales & marketing at Geometric. “With the addition of MBD production capabilities to CAMWorks 2016—and its integration with SOLIDWORKS MBD 2016 software—the future is now.”
With a variety of processes being used for manufacturing parts in a single product, CAD CAM can help design engineers learn and apply manufacturing best practices for different processes thus avoiding downstream rework and cost problems. Design problems that result in secondary operations and support structures for additive manufacturing and hot spots, porosity, high shrinkage and cracking issues during sand casting process can be avoided. Tubing, leakage and performance issues can be avoided. CAD/CAM further strengthens the rules for existing modules such as, milling, assembly and injection moulding aimed at reducing rework, improving manufacturing time, reducing inventory and preventing assembly problems.
BRING IT ON EARLY
The ability to tightly couple CAD and CAE has a fundamental impact on the way engineers work. Initially, product design used to start with mechanical CAD and then passed to a simulation team for downstream analysis. But now more and more engineers are incorporating CAE during the early stages of product design and development. This shift has made engineering more CAE-centric than CAD-centric which helps speed up the process of creating high quality designs. “Engineers validate and change designs based on simulations conducted during the early part of the concept. This speeds up the design process and improves the overall design guaranteeing the design will work as intended. The CAD/CAE integration enables engineers to collaborate and share information. It supports innovation and there are more ideas readily available to implement and try out,” says Xu.
Speaking at a recent event, BC Rao, MD, Kennametal India, said that the company’s new platform has application details that are available on Cloud. “It also connects to our ecommerce platform containing our products, stockability, inventory, and ordering. Going forward, we are also going to work with CAD-CAM capabilities to improve the output.”
Another company that has been active in CNC motion and height controls, CAM nesting software is Hypertherm. ProNest, Hypertherm’s advanced CAD/CAM nesting software for automated cutting, can be integrated with virtually any third party software including ERP and MRP (Manufacturing Resource Planning) systems.
With nesting work connected to all other areas of business, one can eliminate manual and redundant tasks that exist in the workflow. Jobs can be managed, tracked, and combined more easily. And inventory will be better managed for faster turnover. All of which adds to the profitability.