Trials show CAM product has quickest amortisation

CAM provider has carried out practical excercises to show that its CNC milling programming software, in compraison with competing software, provides the quickest return on investment.

Delcam said that its latest release of its PowerMILL CAM software offers the quickest-ever return on investment (ROI) for companies that are looking to replace their existing programming system with faster, more productive software.

The company claimed that many manufacturers could cover the cost of changing to PowerMILL within three to six months as a result of time and money saved in programming and machining.

* Productivity trials - Delcam performed trials to confirm the added productivity that is possible with PowerMILL 8 CAM.

Trials results showed reductions in the average programming time of 30% and in the average machining time of 15%, when compared to the results obtained with the PowerMILL 7 version.

On this basis, a typical sub-contract or toolmaking company, programming and machining an average of 300 different parts/year, could recoup the cost of a PowerMILL licence in just over three months, said Delcam.

Delcam's PowerMILL marketing manager, Mark Forth, told manufacturingtalk.com: "We know from benchmarks undertaken by our prospective customers that PowerMILL 7 offered faster programming and machining than most other CAM systems on the market.

With the productivity gains we have added into PowerMILL 8, we are even more confident that we can offer the most productive machining solution, especially for companies using high-speed and 5-axis equipment".

* Forging die, injection mould cavity and press tool - three components were used to represent typical jobs that would benefit from using the Delcam software, as follows.

* A 0.25m square forging die.

* A 0.5m square injection mould cavity.

* A 2m long press tool.

A comprehensive sequence of machining strategies was calculated for each part, including roughing, rest-roughing, semi-finishing and finishing programs, all using realistic stepovers, stepdowns and tolerances.

All the calculations were undertaken on a 64 bit Windows XP computer, with 4GB RAM, 2 AMD 2.6Ghz processors and Quadro FX540 128Mb graphics card.

Forth underlined two major areas responsible for the improved results.

He reported: "The faster programming is mainly the result of improved memory management within PowerMILL 8 that gives significantly faster calculation times".

He continued: "The improved machining times have been achieved by more efficient ordering of the toolpaths, especially in rest-roughing and rest-finishing.

This means that 'air time' is minimised and the cutter spends the maximum time possible on the job".

Forth said that both the above factors were most significant for large, complex components, like press tools for automotive bodywork, and for smaller, highly-detailed models, such as moulds for fine-tolerance and high-accuracy parts.

He added: "However, companies making smaller, less complex components tend to produce more different items during a year so the overall time to recoup the investment in PowerMILL would be similar.

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