Delcam’s PartMaker makes aerospace company more productive

Since implementing Delcam’s PartMaker CAM software in 2002, C&A Tool has not only been able to cope with the increased complexity of the aerospace parts made on the company’s Swiss machines, it has also become appreciably more productive. The full story can be seen on Delcam TV at http://www.delcam.tv/delcam-video.asp?VideoId=109.

Founder and President Richard Conrow began his company 40 years ago in a garage in rural Indiana and grew it into a 530-employee organisation with 750,000 square feet of manufacturing space. A portion of the sophisticated manufacturing is carried out across a bank of twenty-seven state-of-the-art, multi-axis Star CNC Swiss-type lathes. The key to success in manufacturing highly complex, highly precise components on these machines is in developing NC programs for them quickly and efficiently. To this end, C&A Tool adopted PartMaker to automate its programming.

“We can take a complex part and have it programmed in a couple of hours. There is no way this could be done on the shop floor any more,” said Mark Simpson, Supervisor of C&A Tool’s Swiss machining area.
An important factor is the Full Machine Simulation function that allows C&A Tool’s programmers to simulate the machining of a part in a “virtual reality” environment on their PC away from the shop floor. The software allows them to see exactly how the part will look on an exact machine model, detecting any errors on the part or any collisions that may occur in the machine’s working envelope, before setting up a job.
“With PartMaker, we can do more with less. The more time you take with the software, running the collision detection, the less time you spend in set-up,” commented Nathan Esslinger, Manufacturing Engineer. “An extra twenty minutes on PartMaker can save eight hours in set up during the middle of the night when noone is here to help.”
“The best way to evaluate the improvement is to look at programming time. We have cut programming time in half, easily,” claimed Mr. Esslinger. “Now we’re doing parts that we would have turned away previously because the programming would have been too difficult or time-consuming.”

Nathan Esslinger from C&A Tool claims that PartMaker has cut his programming times in half

C&A Tool must not only be ultra-efficient in its programming but in its quoting process as well. By using PartMaker and by requesting solid models from customers rather than just part drawings, time cycles and quotations can be generated very quickly.

In the current tight economic environment, C&A Tool has seen a big increase in quoting as customers look to shop for the most competitive prices available for engineered aerospace components. “Especially in this economy, a lot of people are passing parts around to get quotes. When we get a solid model, with PartMaker, instead of taking hours, quoting takes minutes,” said Mr. Esslinger. This means C&A Tool can quote on more jobs and win more as well.