Edging ahead

With 70,000 employees worldwide and annual sales of $23 billion, Magna is the largest automotive parts maker in North America.

“We focus on new technologies and new product development,” says Durward Smith, director of Magna's facility in Aurora, Ontario. “The automotive market has always been tough and in the past year it's become even tougher and companies throughout the industry – Magna included – are looking to conserve capital expenditure where possible. We need our programs and processes to run as fast as possible to ensure that we maintain our competitive edge.”

Magna purchased PowerSHAPE and PowerMILL not only to enhance productivity by making parts faster, better and less expensively, but also to aid innovation.

“We do everything from prototyping to tooling so we're constantly changing direction,” states project leader Paul Miranda, a designer of many of Magna's inventive and inspired creations. “It's really easy with PowerSHAPE and PowerMILL to work easily between the two programs for example, if I'm machining a part and want to cover up holes and extend surfaces. I'm also able to quickly export the results from PowerMILL to Vericut to check for any sign of collisions and make sure I don't have any accidents on the machine.”

PowerMILL offers powerful editing tools to cope with the different demands of the various projects. “You're able to trim toolpaths on the fly,” Mr Miranda adds. “I've used several software programs in the past but PowerMILL is by far the quickest and easiest to use.”

Mr Miranda credits PowerMILL's 5-axis capabilities for the success of one recent project where a designer wanted to combine two parts into one. Magna staff told him the software could achieve this while saving him money and creating a better part using PowerMILL and PowerSHAPE. “You can just imagine the cost efficiency there,” observes Mr Miranda. “He was very pleased when he was able to put those two parts together.”

Mr Miranda is also enthused by the partnership he, Magna and Delcam have built over the years. “We work very closely with Delcam to come up with the best posts for our machines,” he explains. “They're always willing to help and always just a phone call away.”

“A loyal and strong partner is going to be there today, tomorrow and for the long haul,” concludes prototype manager, Stanley Tomczak. “Collectively we can solve problems more efficiently and effectively.”

Delcam
www.delcam.com