CAM change speeds water jet programming

As business grew for a water jet cutting installation, the original CAM was taking too long, so a new CAM acquisition brought a 600% improvement in nesting time, often saving 3h/day.

The Wagner Machine Co, based in Champaign, Illinois, USA, offers a precision CNC machine shop services covering a wide variety of cutting technologies.

The firm purchased an OMAX 2652 Waterjet cutting machine in 2003, which has a maximum cutting table of 26in x 52in.

The machine's CAM software could automatically nest simple components, but it could not automatically carry out dissimilar part nesting.

Project manager at Wagner, Kurt Wagner, said that the the machine's software was initially satisactory but as the business grew, programmers were spending several hours a day nesting.

Being unable autonest, the programmers had to produce nests in the CAD software manually.

Then a complete DXF nest was exported to the CAM system to program.

The procedure initally worked well, but was very time consuming, said Wagner.

Wagner wanted automatic nesting, especially with the planned purchase of the larger 55100 OMAX waterjet.

He said: "We researched the CAM market in 2007, with price and service being our initial considerations.

At that time we did not look at JETCAM.

Of the systems we did test none of them could come close to the nests that we could generate manually.

In 2007 we purchased the 55100 and OMAX suggested that we evaluate JETCAM".

Wagner sent OMAX's US partner NestOne Solutions a series of DXF components for a planned job and requested a benchmark comparison.

Wagner explained: "I emailed the DXFs to NestOne and received the comparison back in about 30 min - the same nest was taking us 2-3h to do manually, as complicated nests require more efficient nesting.

I could immediately see that the nest was substantially better than my own - I'd estimated that I would need three sheets but the JETCAM nest only required one and one-third.

NestOne even provided the DXF nest, which I could then use to cut the nest".

Wagner purchased JETCAM Expert in August 2007, along with JETCAM's Free Form High Performance Nesting module.

Installation was performed in the morning, with training taking the remainder of the day.

Of the training Wagner said: "We were pretty much 'up and running' after the afternoon's training and were immediately able to create nests and accurate NC code.

With any software product you always wonder if you are going to get 'hung out to dry' after you buy the product, but the after sales support from NestOne has been excellent.

It is also very useful to be able to speak to the same staff that performed on-site training, as they know our set-up.

Three months down the line and we've only made four or five calls to support, all of which were answered straight away".

* Materials requisiton reduced - a 'knock-on' effect of a reduction in material waste is that less sheets are required.

As each sheet can take 15-20 min to load and unload this further maximizes the throughput of each machine and operator.

Wagner also benefited from the close technical relationship between JETCAM and OMAX.

Wagner told manufacturingtalk.com: "We sent a request to JETCAM to see if they could match the DXF layer colors to match those of the OMAX control, which they did through collaboration with OMAX, which was received in the next release".

* Software cost amortisation - since purchasing JETCAM Expert, not only has Wagner reduced their programming time and material utliization, but the company has also increased the flexibility of both machines.

Wagner concluded: "When we initially looked at nesting, price was our biggest consideration.

After seeing the efficiency of JETCAM it was a non-issue, especially as the cost in comparison to anything that came close was competitive.

JETCAM will pay for itself within 6-12 months based on material savings alone, but it has given us greater capacity on the 2652 waterjet and freed up staff - we can now program, nest and cut the parts in the same time that it took just to program and nest them before, often saving 3h/day".

JETCAM benefits realised by Wagner are as follows.

* 600% improvement in nesting time, often saving 3h/day.

* Material utilization improved by 50% or more.

* Highly optimized nests generated in minutes.

* Software optimized specifically for OMAX machines.

* Single system driving both machines.

* Can maximize throughput on the smaller machine.

* Trained in half a day, with only four to five calls to support since.

* Material load/unload times reduced.

* Customer requested updates received next release of the software.

* Excellent support.

* System paid for itself within 6-12 months.

Water jet cutting machines in use at Wagner Machine are as follows.

* OMAX 2652 Waterjet.

* OMAX 55100 Waterjet.

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