Open Mind becomes Tier 1 member at the AMRC

The research facility has invited the company to enhance its membership status following a number of successful collaborative projects that have been undertaken during Open Mind’s four year tenure as a Tier 2 member. The aerospace sector is a target market for the CAM software developer.

By 2032 it is estimated the global aerospace industry will demand 29,000 new large civil airliners, 24,000 business jets and 5,800 regional aircraft valued at over US$5 trillion - a potential market value of around US$600 billion for the UK over the next 20 years.

The sector is of such importance to the UK economy that the Government has committed £10 billion over the next ten years towards developing the industry. An element of government strategy involves supporting innovation centres such as the AMRC, and in turn, the AMRC is driving innovation within the aerospace industry to ensure it achieves these targets. Now, Open Mind has its seat at the twice yearly board meetings to discuss the next series of development programs.

The cost of Tier 1 membership at the AMRC is £200,000 per year, demonstrating the company’s level of commitment. Commenting on the new membership status, Open Mind’s technical sales manager Matthew Coulson said: "We have committed considerable resources to the AMRC in terms of the three seats of our hyperMILL software and one day a week technical support. This resource commitment will be of benefit to ourselves as well as the AMRC as we are already working on cutting-edge projects with several aerospace OEMs. Committing our effort to these OEMs could potentially lead to Open Mind supplying hyperMILL CAM software to some of the largest aerospace manufacturers in the world."

Whilst the details of the research projects cannot be fully disclosed, Open Mind has already been involved in benchmarking trials to measure toolpath capability and optimisation of CAM systems through hyperMILL against CNC control units. Other ongoing projects include the development of new CAM strategies and feature enhancements to deliver productivity benefits to different aerospace manufacturers whilst other programs are evolving around the utilisation of complex multi-function cutting tools that demand specialist CAM support.

Mr Coulson has also been working closely with the AMRC's aerofoil technical lead Tom McCready to deliver solutions to the global aerospace community for over a year: “Open Mind’s hyperMILL provides a highly effective CAM solution,” Mr McCready stated. “I have been principally utilising the functionality for multi-blade components.

“The software is easy to use and good quality toolpaths can be created and computed quickly; the tool axis control allows the programmer to intelligently define axis reversal and other common surface issue positions, while the analysis tools enables the programmer to anticipate issues prior to machining trials.”

Open Mind Technologies www.openmind-tech.com