Manufacturing complexity

The manufacturing environment is increasingly complex. The need for CAM and PLM tools by the manufacturing engineer, NC programmer or machinist is similar to the need for computer assistance by the pilot of modern aircraft systems. The modern machinery cannot be properly used without this assistance. Today's CAM systems support the full range of machine tools including: turning, 5 axis machining and wire EDM. Today’s CAM user can easily generate streamlined tool paths, optimized tool axis tilt for higher feed rates and optimized Z axis depth cuts as well as driving non-cutting operations such as the specification of probing motions.

Integration with PLM and the extended enterprise

Today’s competitive and successful companies have used PLM to integrate manufacturing with enterprise operations from concept through field support of the finished product. To ensure ease of use appropriate to user objectives, modern CAM solutions are scalable from a stand-alone CAM system to a fully integrated multi-CAD 3D solution-set. These solutions are created to meet the full needs of manufacturing personnel including part planning, shop documentation, resource management and data management and exchange.

Machining process

Most machining progresses through four stages, each of which is implemented by a variety of basic and sophisticated strategies, depending on the material and the software available. The stages are:

Roughing

This process begins with raw stock, known as billet, and cuts it very roughly to shape of the final model. In milling, the result often gives the appearance of terraces, because the strategy has taken advantage of the ability to cut the model horizontally. Common strategies are zig-zag clearing, offset clearing, plunge roughing, rest-roughing.

Semi-finishing

This process begins with a roughed part that unevenly approximates the model and cuts to within a fixed offset distance from the model. The semi-finishing pass must leave a small amount of material so the tool can cut accurately while finishing, but not so little that the tool and material deflect instead of shearing. Common strategies are raster passes, waterline passes, constant step-over passes, pencil milling.

Finishing

Finishing involves a slow pass across the material in very fine steps to produce the finished part. In finishing, the step between one pass and another is minimal. Feed rates are low and spindle speeds are raised to produce an accurate surface.

Contour milling

In milling applications on hardware with five or more axes, a separate finishing process called contouring can be performed. Instead of stepping down in fine-grained increments to approximate a surface, the workpiece is rotated to make the cutting surfaces of the tool tangent to the ideal part features. This produces an excellent surface finish with high dimensional accuracy.

Areas of usage

- In mechanical engineering

- In machining

- In electronic design automation, CAM tools prepare printed circuit board (PCB) and integrated circuit design data for manufacturing.

Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) in engineering is a method of manufacturing in which the entire production process is controlled by computer. The traditional separated process methods are joined through a computer by CIM. This integration allows that the processes exchange information with each other and they are able to initiate actions. Through this, integration the manufacturing can be faster and with fewer errors, although the main advantage is the ability to create automated manufacturing processes. Typically CIM relies on closed-loop control processes, based on real-time input from sensors. It is also known as flexible design and manufacturing.

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