Offline software and tools
Why you
need any additional software, pay money for it if you have the same in your CNC
control? The answer is simple enough – besides operator there could be other
people who need to work with bending technology. All manufacturers of CNC
machines normally have the software as offline package to install at different
place for preparation of programs for the machine. It could be necessary first
of all for engineers to develop and project the part and to leave to the operator
the standard work to control the machine. For small companies engineer and the
operator could be the same person but if there is the engineers department
usually there are different people with different work tasks. Moreover on the
market there are independent software manufacturers to offer independent
software packages for the most common machinery. For example, for press brake
market there are around 5 manufacturers to sell the software with nearly the
same possibilities.
At first as
we said the software is great to offer the programs preparation outside of the
machine. At second software can increase the possibilities of the machine as
well, for example to make 3D simulation of press brake bending if it is CNC
control only with 2D visualization possibilities. Or to perform auto-nesting
(optimization of parts position on the sheet metal to reduce the percentage of
waste part) for CNC cutting machine – laser, plasma or waterjet. At third
somebody could require some separate functions, for example to go to the tool
library to verify the availability of necessary tooling for the new order.
It is also
clear that outside of operator and engineer there are other staff to check the
production flow, machine status control and availability of production for the
order. Even sales manager should know how to calculate, for example tonnage for
the press brake in production to understand if it will be enough to perform the
order. Sure thing in future with the grow of Industry 4.0 of these questions
will be fully integrated – customer will get the information about the machine,
if the tooling is necessary the order will automatically go
to the purchase department and software will allow to run immediate production
of possible and the drawing doesn’t need the intervention of the engineer. But
today all the actions are separated and to realize them all in the most
convenient way – is the task for software to present all necessary functions
for necessary departments. Today mostly offline software is the engineering
software to make the program but it is sure that tomorrow the winner of the
competition will be the manufacturer who will implement inside more and more
necessary management and production flow functionality.
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