CAD/CAM OFFERS MORE EFFICIENCY, CONNECTIVITY AND PRECISION By Cynthia Kustush, contributing writer, The American Mold Builder
Minternal and external. Shortened delivery times, continued old building shops are facing a lot of pressures these days – both
pricing pressure from Chinese mold suppliers, new employees without significant shop floor experience replacing retiring seasoned employees and reduced tooling demand in certain industries have combined to shrink profits and increase stress levels. Software designers are working to bring more advanced solutions to market and help fill the gap so tool builders can more accurately design and develop molds. The American Mold Builder surveyed a few CAD/CAM supplier companies to find out what specific trends they are seeing, how their products can fulfill moldmakers’ needs and what’s new for 2020. CAD/CAM TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS According to Ben Mund, senior market analyst for CNC Software Inc., Tolland, Connecticut, which owns Mastercam software, higher productivity is what moldmakers need most from their CAD and CAM software products. “They want software that can give them the most efficient way to remove bulk material to near net shape. That level of productivity extends through the entire process, driving trends we see in CAD/CAM software development: Faster on the machine, faster off the machine and surface finishes that are as high as possible,” he said.
34
the american MOLD BUILDER | Issue 1 2020
Mund says management teams of Mastercam customer shops are increasingly discussing how they can advance connectivity through the shop. “They want to ensure that their software, machines and other shop floor processes can talk to one another,” he said. “For example, with CAM software, you’ll find connections to tooling libraries, inspection, shop monitoring and a variety of other items. It’s all part of making sure shops are ready for the shift to digital manufacturing.” Mastercam is working to address both fronts. On the programming side, Mund said the company continues to aggressively develop toolpath techniques that optimize both bulk material removal for mold roughing and high-precision surface finishing. “In both cases, we view productivity improvement as some combination of both higher precision and faster machine time,” he explained. “Our expansion of Mastercam’s Dynamic Motion and Accelerated Finishing toolpaths directly targets these areas.” For example, Dynamic Motion constantly changes the amount of engagement of the tool in the cut to ensure it is continually removing material using the optimal chip load for the cutting condition. Mund said the resulting time savings in near-net mold roughing can reach 75%. The recently introduced NC programming function, called Accelerated Finishing, ensures shops use new shaped cutting tools
