Industry Summary Articles

Radan will feature at the forthcoming Blechexpo exhibition in Germany.  The trade fair duo of Blechexpo and Schweisstec is the only event in the world that deals with the complementary technologies of sheet metal processing and joining techniques.

To be held at the trade fair centre in Stuttgart (Landesmesse Stuttgart) from November 7 to 10, Blechexpo has been able to gain a leading position in Europe, and now ranks second in the world for sheet metal processing exhibitions. And the Schweisstec international specialist trade fair for joining technology forms the perfect complement.

Thomas Menholz, from Vero’s German reseller, 3D Concepts, says the exhibition is the ideal venue for them to demonstrate the latest version of Radan. “We’ll be showing the Radan 2017 CAD/CAM/MRP solution, along with demonstrating how to connect the Radan suite to ERP systems and CNC machines under the aspects of the Industrie 4.0 digital factory.”

Improved algorithms in the new version have led to an important enhancement of Radan’s powerful nesting capabilities. “Continuous effort is applied to further strengthen the nesting engine to achieve a better fit, and therefore, a potentially better material yield,” says Thomas Menholz. It is also easier now to create nest projects, thanks to the new template function. “Existing project settings can be stored with a given name, and recalled at any time. Even creating nest projects for the same machine tool sometimes required repetitive work, but now everything the user needs will be there, saving quite a number of steps.”

Radan 2017 addresses danger of scrap flying off, sliding under the sheet, or damaging the tools on punching machines, by flagging up where floating scrap will occur. For Profiling, the Autotooling routines are now more efficient in placing tags, or microjoints, for common cutting. And the foil cutting function has been extended to scrap, ensuring that where sheets are covered with a protective foil for laser cutting, clean cuts can be made for scrap, too.

The Radbend module now highlights where holes are at risk of deforming by being close to bends. Also, the operator can switch between Design and Result Values. “This is particularly valuable where Radbend shows that the end result of a radius, for example, may be different from how it’s designed. Selecting which values gives the user more control over the finished bend, depending on whether it’s vital that they stay with the design values, or if the end result values are acceptable.”

Overall, Thomas Menholz says the items of new and enhanced functionality in Radan 2017 provide immediate improvements for sheet metal manufacturers, while underlining the intention to continue investing heavily in the software.

And those investments include ensuring that Radan can play a major part in developing companies for Industrie 4.0. “In particular, Radan’s new logistics suite can assist in providing quick and accurate quotations and order processing. Also, development and construction departments can undertake technical feasibility studies using Radan 3D and the Radbend offline pressbrake programming and simulation, which eliminates errors in the combination of cutting and bending, using the full Radan CAD/CAM solution.”  

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