Massive gains from revisited CAM acquisition

Engineering subcontractor I & G Precision recently moved all its CAM programming across to Edgecam with spectacular results in terms of cycle time reductions. PES takes a closer look.   

Engineering subcontractor I & G Precision recently moved all its CAM programming across to Edgecam with spectacular results in terms of cycle time reductions. PES takes a closer look.

Operating from 11,000ft² premises in Ystalyfera, Swansea with 11 employees, I & G Precision Engineering predominantly manufactures parts from stainless steel, tool steels and aluminium for aerospace, food, beverage, medical, and defence customers, along with the Royal Mint.

It produces a number of components for aerospace ground support systems such as jigs and fixtures for removing engines and wing parts, along with bakery equipment including rollers for production machines and castings for dough-rollers; and electronics housings for defence customers.

The company has also received commendations from the NHS for its work in devising breathing apparatus for new-born babies to inhale Xenon gas as part of medical treatment.

I & G Precision Engineering had used Edgecam to drive an Emco lathe operated by the firm’s ‘hands-on’ managing director Andrew Evans since investing in CNC machinery in 1992. But as the company expanded with further machine tools and more shopfloor staff, other CAM packages were brought in.

Mr Evans says “Originally we used Edgecam for both milling and turning on those new machines, but when I came off the tools we decided to try other systems, and it was eventually only used on the lathe.”

Andrew’s son, Mike, who is engineering director and workshop manager, says the company has worked closely with Seco Tooling which recently provided tooling and programming support to improve the production process on a specific job.

He says: “We saw immediate benefits as the job used to take us around three hours – including two hours for just one operation – but using Edgecam the full process was completed in an hour.

“When we looked at how Edgecam machining strategies could improve our cycle times it became a no-brainer that we should go back to it on our full range of Haas CNC machine tools, and our new Mazak vertical machining centre.”

Part reprogramming

All new components now go through Edgecam and production runs of older parts are all being reprogrammed with the software.

“We’re saving up to 40% on cutting cycles which has a tremendous impact on the bottom line,” says Mike Evans. “It improves our margins, making us more profitable and frees up the machines, giving us additional capacity to take on more work. Edgecam is a vital part of our entire manufacturing process.”

He says the software’s milling and turning modules ensure the company can ship between 600 and 700 components each month, normally on a three to four-week lead-time: “Edgecam is so simple to use. The customer sends us a STEP, IGES or any other CAD file which we import into the programme and create the fixtures and fittings, identify the CNC machine we’ll be using, and the stock. Then we run Feature Finder to identify all the features of the parts, and generate toolpaths.”

He adds that machining processes are considerably more stable now than under a previous CAD/CAM package: “With our old software, when the cutter was coming into a corner you could see the machine loads spiking which we don’t get with Edgecam> We can run programs overnight, rein the stepovers back and know the tooling will last for the entire production run.”

Massive waves

Mike Evans describes Edgecam’s powerful Waveform Roughing capability as ‘massive’” for the company’s growth plans in terms of driving down cycle times and increasing capacity, enabling the business to take on additional work.

“We do a lot of 3D milling of features such as pockets and we used to machine the roughing cycles in the traditional way, often just stepping down 1mm at a time. However Edgecam allows us to step down up to 10 or 15mm at a time; then as we pocket out to those depths we can profile back and come out of the pockets so it saves considerable time.”

He continues: “At first when those programs were coming in from Seco Tooling we were concerned that the increased feeds and speeds would break the tools. But then we saw how well they worked, and it now gives us the opportunity to push the machines to their limits.”

Mr Evans cites a project where Waveform slashed the roughing cycle from 30 minutes to ten minutes and helped reduce the overall machining time by half.

“We manufacture a particular component for the atomising industry which is used to turn metal into a powder for hard surfacing materials. Traditionally it was a turning job but Waveform means we can now mill the grooves. This was a huge revelation, and made us think of doing jobs in a completely different way.”

Further inspection

The company is now planning more investment in the coming 12 months including Edgecam Inspect which creates measurement cycles on the machine tools. The intuitive user interface and workflow gives a seamless transition from programming CAM cycles to measurement cycles by incorporating metrology technology from Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence.

“This means we’ll be able to inspect every part on the machine if necessary, after each operation, and provide a customer report,” Mr Evans enthuses. “We’re also considering investing in a 5-axis machine and possibly a CMM from Hexagon.

Concluding, Andrew Evans says the company introduces Edgecam to its apprentices immediately when they join the company.

“We’ve currently got three apprentices at various stages and they’ve all taken to Edgecam like a duck to water,” he says.

“The skillset is changing; a lot of the old traditional craftsmen’s skills are dying out and engineers need to embrace computer-led skills to produce the components properly. Edgecam helps engineers deliver what’s needed by having several ways of achieving the same result.”

Edgecam www.edgecam.com

I & G Precision Engineering www.iandgengineering.co.uk

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Edgecam

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