Autodesk CAM tools are integrated inside Fusion 360, combining collaboration tools and shared data storage with ease-of-use and flexibility when creating programs for milling machining projects.
Autodesk CAM product manager Anthony Graves and his team develop integrated CNC programming solutions for the popular SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor, and Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD platforms. Graves describes the evolution of integration in the design/manufacturing space:
"When we talk about integrated CAM, the first thing we need to discuss is CAD. That's because many people are just now discovering integrated CAM. To understand how integrated CAM evolved, we need to understand how CAD and CAM evolved individually in the '90s. In the early '90s we had QTR, Unigraphics and Pro/Engineer. This was the heyday of hard-core 3D design tools running in UNIX on very expensive hardware. In 1995 something big happened with the introduction of SolidWorks, an application that allowed any professional to have an affordable, good 3D solid modelling tool. SolidWorks, Inventor and Solid Edge were new, but new CAM products were being developed right alongside. There was once a strict separation between the CAD design guys and the manufacturing community."
That separation was no mere inconvenience. Design and manufacturing engineering were historically the Yin and Yang of part making... Inextricably linked, working together, yet often attacking the same problem from radically different perspectives. Frequently, the lightest weight, highest performance or lowest cost part could not be manufactured as designed and as a result a highly iterative and expensive development process became standard practice.
From the other perspective however, when ease of manufacture became the dominant design criterion, unacceptably high costs crept into the design phase through suboptimal part performance, excess mass, longer machine cycle times and not infrequently, all three. With drastically increased cost-down pressures driven by global trade with low-wage off-shore manufacturers, the time was ripe for true integration, says Graves: "The CAD guys were still maturing and the manufacturing people didn't have time to wait for their own CAD functionality. CNC manufacturers, the machine tool builders, were making more and more sophisticated machines with more complex controls which required advanced programming tools; this required more sophisticated CAM tools."
The need for more sophisticated CAM drove the development of early versions of GibbsCAM and Mastercam among others, but connecting design and production was still a major obstacle, relates Graves: "There were a number of major issues in getting data from design or engineering into manufacturing, whether they were OEM's with dedicated in-house manufacturing operations or job shops. You had to get the data from CAD into CAM. In the '90s and into the 2000's, CNC programmers were complaining that they were getting files that were from newer versions of the CAD applications...and their CAD/CAM applications didn't necessarily support the newer versions. Often the data coming out of CAD was dirty or broken. Translation issues were a major hassle."
Between the front office and the shop floor, translation was more than just a file compatibility issue. While overall part design can look very similar between CAD and CAM renderings, there's a significant difference. The CAM user is carving a net shape out of a larger volume of material; the primary interest is the fastest, most efficient way of achieving that net shape, which makes tool paths the primary focus. It's the nature of the machining processes; the CNC tool passes through the volume of material where the part isn't, whittling out the part from a block of raw material that might have ten times the mass of the finished part. CAD users don't work in the space where waste material turns into chips.
Graves recalls, "as early programmers began to work with CAD and design engineers began working with CAM, it became very frustrating. People begin to look at integrated CAM and looked at what integrated CAM offered customers." Today what it offers is the manufacturing of high-mix, variable volume yet low cost parts.
Integrated CAM solutions reward customers with multiple advantages, starting with a consistent and familiar work flow married to more powerful CAD tools. Integrated systems linking design to manufacturing enable superior data management and streamline the implementation of PDM best practices, while reducing training costs and promoting standardization.
The linkage of design manufacturing functions does more than simply eliminate translation issues. Design changes and updates are available simultaneously to users at both ends of the spectrum, effectively eliminating the disconnect between engineering and manufacturing. Simply put, integrated systems make efficient collaboration possible.
"Integrated CAM gives you one system including simulation and better control over your data", states Graves, adding "most larger companies use PDM or PLM systems; managing the data often requires traceability and integrated CAM offers a better way to manage data. Just as importantly, when changes happen the CNC programmers are alerted to update their tool paths."
Tool path programming is possible directly from design files regardless of format
Who uses integrated systems? One way to break out the user group is by two general categories: DE and prototyping. They're very creative and agile communities with several properties in common.
The design engineering group is a classic Inventor and SolidWorks cohort that wants and needs to improve control over design, reduce product delivery time and reduce overall costs. To achieve total product cost reduction, they need software that simultaneously improves machining efficiency, quality and lowers overall machine cycle times. Ease-of-use is critical to this group, who demand tight integration with CAD tools to reduce the training burden and the documentation load with a single platform. Graves declares, "they don't want to learn machining; they want the software to do the heavy lifting for them."
Graves adds, "the other group of people are the 'prototypers'. They're designer/engineers often working in start-ups and they are proficient with SolidWorks or Inventor. They usually outsource their prototypes and have limited CNC experience. This group needs software to be intuitive and easy-to-use with little or no training and expect their software to utilize Inventor or SolidWorks work flow tools and conventions. Their needs are similar: better control over their business, faster turnaround and tighter control over design and quality. Part machining in-house allows them to take control over the design process and part quality."
Does standalone CAM stand a chance? For larger operations with the critical mass to dedicate personnel to each discipline, yes, but with total integration now widely available from major vendors in robust, proven platforms, it's difficult to justify working in design/manufacturing "silos" anymore. And for today's margin-squeezed, deadline-driven part makers, there's usually no survival option that leaves any cost savings on the table.
Note: Autodesk has paid a fee to ENGINEERING.com for the promotion of their CAM solutions. They have had no editorial input to this article. All opinions are mine. Jim Anderton