Standardising on Delcam’s PowerMILL CAM software for all of its machining has proved a key component of the ‘Power to Change’ philosophy at Paragon D&E. "We are seeing jobs coming in days ahead of schedule,” claimed Manufacturing Engineer, Brian Kerkstra. "We’re seeing jobs that would traditionally have taken us ten weeks being completed in eight or nine weeks.”
"Our ‘Power to Change’ philosophy is about our team working together to develop methods to do things more efficiently. It’s about getting people involved and really trusting in their decisions,” explained Paragon President, David Muir. "We’re actually envisioning what Paragon could look like in a year from now. Before we had PowerMILL, this was a five-year plan for Paragon – we are accelerating our plans by using the relationship we have with Delcam.”
To see the full interview, please go to www.delcam.tv/paragon-partnership
Paragon, which is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is best known for producing very large, and very accurate, tooling and components. The company serves a variety of industries, including automotive, heavy truck, oil and gas, aerospace, defence, marine and nuclear.
This diversity has been an important part of the company’s success. "A big advantage that Paragon has is that we’re really able to cross-pollinate ideas from different projects,” claimed Mr. Muir. "What we learn in one industry, like aerospace, we’re able to apply in injection moulding or vice versa, or even in compression tooling or even now in hydro-form tooling.”
In contrast, a diverse range of programming software used to be a major problem. "We had too many software programs on the machine floor,” remembered Mr. Muir. "That problem was driving a lot of inefficiencies with our training and with the ability for our staff to move from one station to another. We explored the idea of looking for only one software program across the whole shop. We looked through all the software that was available in the world today and we decided on Delcam.”
The decision wasn’t only about the strength of the software. "Delcam brought us a willingness to listen to what our company needed and what our users needed,” stated Mr. Muir. "Most of the competitors told us "This is how it’s going to be” but Delcam said "What can we do to make your business more profitable?” We needed more customised input and, instead of being the traditional software vendor that pushed back and tried to shoe-horn us into its product, Delcam gave us direct access to the development team.”
"Delcam isn’t just another software provider,” added Andrew Samrick, Vice President of Manufacturing. "We’ve been given regular training onsite. We were able to move from zero knowledge to a better cost performance in less than six months and that’s amazing!”
"Our customers have been telling us that, because of the way we can move now, we are doing things that no one else on earth can do for them,” he continued. "We’ve got some great ‘mad scientists’ who can think up these incredible things. PowerMILL has helped us to take their focus off the day-to-day issues and to begin to look forward. The type of equipment that we build is among the largest of its kind but that’s simply a stepping stone towards being able to build more custom solutions for specific customer needs. Delcam allows us to take care of our customers and to make money at the same time.”
One area where Paragon needed extra support was dynamic machining control for the company’s large five-axis machines. Paragon staff worked with Delcam developers to create the integrated mechanism for optimising five-axis positioning in the 2014 R2 release of PowerMILL.
Another of the main drivers for the change in technology at Paragon was the availability of skilled labour. "There is a shortage of labour out there right now, especially of skilled machinists,” explained Mr. Muir. "That shortage means that we need to find technology that takes the labour that we have and applies it across more machining time.”
To tackle the problem, in 2013, Paragon decided to start a training programme within the company called Paragon Technical University. Dean of PTU, Larry Oppenhuizen, explained, "This programme allows us to put our apprentices on the right path for the right career choice. We have twenty-six of them currently and they are all learning PowerMILL.”
"Now that we are using the same software throughout the plant, an apprentice that is learning PowerMILL in, for example, the small machine department can go over to another department more quickly as he already has Delcam knowledge. It makes it easy for us to give our apprentices a good rounded education because they only need to learn one set of software.”
