Product category:
CAM and software for sheetmetal, punching, profiling, EDM, etc
News Release from: Jetcam International | Subject: JETCAM CNC punch press CAM software
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 02 March 2007
Punch press CAM helps triple business
A US sheet metal subcontract services provider tripled our business in 2006, which was in no small part due to the CAM software used with CNC combination turret punch presses.
Metalhead Industries, , based in Salem, Indiana provides sheet metal subcontract services When purchasing their first Punch Press from FMS Machine Tools - a Finn-Power Shear Genius combination turret punch press with right angle shear - they were offered JETCAM but decided to look at alternatives before committing
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 26 Dec 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Said James Gumaelius, president; "I went to one of the main trade shows to assess what the best system was to drive the Finn Power, however none of the other systems looked as easy to use as JETCAM.
Before buying the CNC punch press most of our workload was forming, with all punching requirements being subcontracted." JETCAM Expert was installed in 2005 by FMS, along with the MRP module, rectangular automatic nesting and Right Angle Shear support.
Although three days of training were provided James felt quite confident after the first day: "I had no CAD or CAM experience prior to us purchasing the punch press but even after a day I was able to design a part, nest it and generate NC code.
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By the third day we were mostly reviewing what we'd already covered." While JETCAM Expert provides a completely automatic tooling process, James chose to manually place tooling information on the part.
"As I was still on a learning curve I decided to place tooling onto components manually as I wanted to learn how the tooling affected the way the part ran on the machine.
JETCAM doesn't force me to automate things I don't want to, but takes care of the things that I do.
I'm also using the single component automatic processing (SCAP) feature to generate a complete sheet of a particular part in a few seconds with just a few mouse clicks.
In the future I'll place the tooling knowledge into JETCAM's tooling libraries so that the system can process this automatically and automatically tool and nest any geometry file." Although Gumaelius had limited knowledge of the fabrication processes he found JETCAM very intuitive and required little in the way of support; "I only made two calls to technical support, both of which were down to gaps in my knowledge rather than problems with the software.
As they had in-depth knowledge of both the software and the machine tool they were able to answer all of my questions immediately." The investment in JETCAM to run the Finn-Power has paid off, with Gumaelius citing that the system paid for itself through increased sales and capacity in a month.
Gumaelius concluded; "We tripled our business in 2006, which is in no small part due to JETCAM.
I am producing more complex parts every month and even now I know I'm not using all of the features of JETCAM.
We may purchase another punch or a combination machine further down the line, so it's good to know that JETCAM will support whatever I buy.
Coming from no experience I am fascinated with what I can do with JETCAM." * About the machine - Finn-Power Shear Genius with Right Angle Shear Benefits Achieved: the following.
* Much easier to use and learn than other systems benchmarked.
* Generates 100% reliable code for all the advanced features of the Finn-Power Shear Genius.
* User with no PC experience able to design and program parts within a day.
* User can choose to either manually or automatically tool parts.
* Using SCAP to generate complete sheet of single parts in seconds.
* System paid for itself within the first month of use.
* Totally stable system - has never crashed.
* Only two calls to support that related to user questions rather than problems.
* Local support covering software and machine tool.
**About JETCAM International - since 1986 JETCAM has developed and distributed its Expert range of CADCAM and nesting software.
With over 5000 licenses installed in over 70 countries, JETCAM Expert is also installed as standard with many machine tools.
Technologies covered include punching, laser, plasma, waterjet, routing and flatbed composite cutting.
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