CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
26 April 2010
Implementation Investments
Major Chinese Companies Gain Substantial Productivity Improvements With WorkNC CAM Software
Sescoi’s expansion in the Chinese market continues apace with the installation of WorkNC CAM software in a number of Chinese toolrooms. Two typical WorkNC users are Changzhou Xingyu Automotive Lighting Systems and Shanghai Sharp Mold and Manufacturing System Co. Ltd. (SSMC).
Changzhou Xingyu specializes in the design, development and manufacture of automotive lighting, and has the capacity to produce 10 million units each year. Major automotive companies including FAW, DFAC, Shanghai Volkswagen and Shanghai GM all rely on supplies of parts from the Changzhou based company.
By contrast, SSMC, which is a joint venture between two Japanese companies, the Sharp Group and Tensho Electric Industries Co Ltd, designs and manufactures plastic injection tools for the automotive and domestic appliance industries. SSMC has around US$ 7.5 million of invested capital and, like Changzhou Xingyu, prides itself in the quality of its products delivered on time and at a competitive cost.
Both companies particularly value the automated CNC programming in WorkNC. Changzhou Xingyu uses the template capabilities of the software where a series of standard tool set-ups and machining operations can be automatically applied to similar parts. Using this methodology, programming takes a few seconds and the results are consistent, error free and reliable.
Mr Zhu Zhenghua, Changzhou Xingyu’s CAD/CAM Manager, says, “We often use the same machining strategies, tools and cutting parameters for similar parts. Before we had WorkNC, manual input of these repetitive operations could easily result in machining errors. Now, with the automation in WorkNC, when we program families of lamps parts these problems have become a thing of the past.”
Jie Han, Production Manager at SSMC declared, “All our engineers agree that WorkNC’s automated toolpaths are simple to use and very reliable. It substantially reduces the amount of manual finishing required, and provides us with collision free and safe toolpaths for our high speed machining centers, which cannot be matched by any other software we have evaluated.”
Changzhou Xingyu has seen some major productivity improvements thanks to WorkNC CAM software. Mr Zhu Zhenghua comments, “We particularly appreciate and have full confidence in the security and reliability of WorkNC. Its automatic functions are very efficient and we have achieved overall productivity gains of 20-30% while the preparation of roughing programs takes between a quarter and a fifth of the time it used to take with our old CAD/CAM system.”
For SSMC, WorkNC has proved to be invaluable in the face of intense competition in the domestic appliance market. Jie Han comments, “The cycle time from design to production of a mold tool for a large LCD TV would normally be two months. WorkNC has enabled us to virtually halve production times, enabling us to achieve completion in 35 days. The quality and speed of delivery we can achieve with the software are, without doubt, critical factors in preserving our position as a leader in our industry.”
Technology within the machining algorithms in WorkNC CNC software contribute to its reliability and speed. Trochoidal toolpaths cope with excessive material in corners enabling cutting forces to be kept low and constant, avoiding damage to tooling and the machine itself. Feature recognition automatically finds and machines holes and pockets which are common features on mold tools, while Auto 5, WorkNC’s automated 5-axis CNC machining, enables organic shapes to be cut efficiently and without the complexity normally associated with 5-axis programming.
Han from SSMC concludes, “The adoption of WorkNC plays a crucial role in shortening our production cycle times and we are delighted to have found a programming system that suits our requirements so well. By collaborating with Sescoi we will ensure that we remain leaders in our industry, thanks to the continuous productivity enhancements we get in each WorkNC upgrade.”
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