Paying its way

Initially, two CAM systems were used to drive the lasers, but this proved to be problematic and inefficient as production manager, Dustin Sim explains.

“Previously we could only specify one cut condition per thickness, which gave us quality issues. Also, we were looking to find a faster way to nest parts and reduce material waste. Based on our previous CAM experience and the ability for it to allow for multiple cut conditions per thickness we selected Jetcam. We also opted for its high performance nesting module to maximise efficiency and material usage.”

Two licenses of Jetcam Expert were installed in May 2009 – one with nesting module. This allowed for two programmers to design parts and for one machine to be used for generating highly optimised nests. Staff were provided initial training and were able to learn the system independently due to additional training material provided.

After installation a number of benefits immediately came to light. Programming time was halved, as processes took much less time than the previous systems due to many being automated. Once profiling information is applied to each part it is immediately available for each machine, with any updates reflected automatically on any nests.

Nesting time itself saw a 90% reduction, as users simply queue up all parts to be nested for a given material and thickness, specify an amount of time that the nester can run for (which can be overnight to allow the system to consider the most optimised nesting options) and the NC code is generated. Machine cycle time also saw a 20% improvement due to optimised lead-ins, common line cutting, path optimisation and finishing cut sequences all playing a part.

Finally, material utilisation saw a 25% improvement not only because of the optimised nests, but also the ability to store and reuse remnant sheets efficiently. Mr Sim adds: “One of the major benefits is that we can quickly queue up multiple jobs and nest them together for efficiency. Added up, these savings paid for the system within just two months.

Support requirements had previously taken up excessive amounts of time with one of the previous systems taking considerably more than the other. “The support we've had from our distributor, NestOne has been exemplary,” enthuses Mr Sim. “The system is faster to use than all of the others and requires significantly less support than before.”

GT Metal plans to purchase a CNC plasma machine in the future, with Mr Sim citing that Jetcam will be used to drive it. The company is also about to convert its two licenses to a server-based floating set-up, allowing several PCs to have the software installed and for two to run concurrently. Mr Sim concludes: “Jetcam is faster and much more flexible than all of the previous systems we've used. It excels in material utilisation and generating optimised NC code. Jetcam
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