CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
12 August 2008
Implementation Investments
Delcam’s PowerMILL Aids Growth at Toolmakers
As one of Delcam’s first customers in the United States, toolmaker Strohwig Industries has now marked its 12th year as a user of the PowerMILL CAM system. During those years, Strohwig has grown as a business, and increased its use of the software.
Located near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Strohwig Industries was founded in 1978 by experienced toolmakers Wolfgang Strohwig and Larry Glass. The management has focused on four major concepts to move their business forward: quality, size, technology and speed. Delcam software has been a tool used by the company to accomplish all of those goals.
The size goal is quickly evident. Everyone who walks into the shop at Strohwig Industries has the same reaction: “This stuff is huge!” Medium- to large-sized projects are the company’s specialty, and some truly impressive equipment has been installed to pursue that work. There are huge machine tools, huge cranes, and all the other huge equipment required to make huge dies, moulds and parts.
Strohwig first added PowerMILL in 1995 when the company needed more powerful CAM software to program its new high-speed vertical machining centres. The choice was decided by two factors. “We were impressed with knowledge of the Delcam Sales Partner, Cad Cam Systems, and with the flexibility of the software,” recalls Jeff Schaller, Programming Manager at Strohwig.
As one of the first US tool and die shops to use high-speed CNC machining, Strohwig started with just one seat of PowerMILL. As the size and complexity of its work expanded, more seats were purchased. The company now has eight seats of the software and two of those have had five-axis programming added.
“Almost all of the programming for our five-axis machine tools, plus our fourth-axis rotary table, is done with PowerMILL,” related Mr. Schaller. “We make plastic injection moulds, die cast dies, forging dies and do custom machining.”
“We continue to look at other software, but Delcam and Cad Cam Systems have always met or exceeded our expectations,” said Mr. Schaller. “We’ve stayed with PowerMILL because of reliable support from Cad Cam Systems and quality software from Delcam.”
Strohwig’s support and maintenance contract with Cad Cam Systems and Delcam software is important to its goal of making effective use of the latest technology. As a maintenance customer, Strohwig continuously updates its Engineering Department with the latest software necessary to maintain its competitive edge, ensuring that customers receive the best tool possible.
One of Strohwig’s more recent business decisions has been to move into contract machining, especially aerospace parts, and the five-axis machines and PowerMILL software are used extensively for this work. “We now specialise in the manufacturing and machining of highly-complex critical components and precision tooling used in the aerospace sector,” said Mr. Schaller.
Strohwig personnel have come to rely on Cad Cam Systems, Inc., calling the support department whenever help is needed. “We frequently get phone calls from Strohwig programmers, requesting development and refinement of the five-axis post processors,” said Andy Bergstrom, President of Cad Cam Systems. “This is a really strong area for us, as we have our own five-axis machine tools in our contract machine shop. We also work with Strohwig personnel with ideas on five-axis machining strategies for one-off parts.”
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