The CAD Insider

Manufacturing Too Important to Leave to Machines: Autodesk

In the recently held International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS)—the show that packs McCormack Place every two years with over 100,000 hard-core manufacturing professionals and a dazzling array of machines that can make most anything—here was Autodesk with a message: It’s really all about software.

It would be a challenge for any other company. But Autodesk is not afraid—not of the robotic arms that can take your head off or the million-dollar multi axis, room-sized machines that turn nondescript blocks of material into shiny parts and curly threads of metal. The company is also not afraid of the 3D printing machines that are renting more of the show floor than ever—the big ones, not the microwave-sized toy makers insisting they can spit out parts like never before possible.

Nope, Autodesk is saying it is in control of all of that.

 

The Job of Design Software

Amar Hanspal, senior vice president at Autodesk, explains how software is the master of hardware. Autodesk’s collection of software aims to address design and manufacturing and was on display at the Additive Manufacturing Conference, which shared a venue with IMTS.

Before anything gets made, it can exist virtually. That’s the job of design software, where Autodesk is a big player. Autodesk software can completely define a part. It has, over the years, also acquired a band of companies that also can help make the part—or control the machines that make the part. Autodesk bought one of the leading companies, Delcam, a few years ago, as well as HSMWorks. And its Fusion360, first a design tool, does CAM too.

Just plug in the MoriSeiki metal-cutting machine, the 3D printer or, if you are really cutting edge (get it?), the KUKA robotic arm with a cutting head and out comes the part.

Or as Amar Hanspal, senior vice president at Autodesk, tells it, just 3D print it. That’s total freedom. The 3D-printed part does it all, Hanspalsaid. It’s even cheaper.

 

Cheaper—Really?

If you weren’t ready for that and were thinking 3D printing is slow and expensive per part, you need to hear why.

It’s cheaper because you don’t have to make the factory, said Hanspal. You can make one or two parts. 3D printing is close to making push-button manufacturing happen.

But be careful you don’t go too fast, cautions Hanspal. Critical parts will still need checking and simulation. I’m sure parts that go in a plane or a car will have to be tested and simulated with some sort of validation. But for all others, why not?

This part could only have been made with software that can handle additive and subtractive manufacturing, said Mark Forth of Autodesk. The part has also been light weighted with generative modeling.

Mark Forth of Autodesk, a Delcam veteran, would be expected to know CNC—which is also known asor subtractive machining in light of the popularity of additive manufacturing and is really the only type of machining we have ever known.

Delcam, the CAM industry stalwart based in Birmingham, UK, was acquired by Autodesk in 2014 but has kept its British identity. But this time around, Forth proudly wears Autodesk colors, signifying that the spirit of independence is now over, that Delcam is now happily part of the Autodesk family.

Autodesk has bundled all of its CAM tools—and there are many—under the “Future of Manufacturing” flag. Under it are HSMWorks, Delcam, NetFab (3D printing), Majestic (composites) and Fusion360, which seems to be the platform of the future and the hope of design and manufacturing for Autodesk.

 

Design, Manufacture—and Use

We’re not done, says Hanspal. The story is not over after the part goes out the door. Once the part is in use, all sorts of things start happening to it. Let’s make this part situationally aware. Let’s outfit it with sensors and transmitters so it can let us know what is happening.

What you thought was the one-stopshop, from concept to manufacture, has been extended. Autodesk has now realized that we can, with the Internet of Things and big data, feed what the part is experiencing back to the designers and engineers

Now, wouldn’t that be ultra-useful?

An Engineer Dreams of a SOLIDWORKS-Proto Labs Merger

As an engineer, I can totally specify a part. Concept, shape, material . . . done! I can render in glorious 3D . . . . It almost looks like the real thing. I can tell if it will survive in the field with stress tests, or drop it in an assembly and find interferences or animate it. I have singlehandedly created this part from thin air for someone who didn’t know what they wanted until I made it. I am a god! I am living the dream.

Now, I want the part in my hands. The dream is interrupted. To get the part made, I have to hand my design over, convey the part to mere mortals, in language they understand. Their machines that only they can talk to. I have to wait. And hope they get it right, not butcher it, not change it.

If only I could push a button and get the part!

Push button manufacturing could be the unsung lament of the mechanical design community. But as engineers, we dare not say it, voice it. We are not supposed to believe in magic — that a part can appear from our designs. We defer to our manufacturing counterparts for that. They need to specify the process, pick the right material and place the bits in the machine . . . right?

3D printing promised the dream of push-button manufacturing. We flocked to it, only to discover it usually couldn’t do the job. Materials are limited, plastic is weak, the chemicals are messy, it’s slower than grass growing. And the good 3D printers cost more than cars.

We are desperate. MarkOne stole the show with its composites part printer (see Best of Show). We’d been making composite parts for so long. But here was a chance to push a button to get a composite part — from the computer into my hands. No layups. No messy chemicals. No annoying humans. But Mark One is a one-trick pony. It only makes small carbon fiber parts.

Enter Proto Labs

There is one company with the imagination and purpose to make this push button manufacturing a reality.

Proto Labs, a Minnesota-based firm with multiple locations and thousands of machines (not just 3D printers), says it wants you to push a button and send it 3D part files. You get to select the material, the process, the quantity. The part lands on your desk a few days later. You’ll know upfront what it will cost. You don’t have to deal with anyone. Unless you want to. Proto Labs has manufacturing engineers who can step in to assist. They are like good waiters — invisible, but who pop up when needed.

Proto Labs tries to automate as much of the manufacturing process as it can. Its software will check for typical manufacturing mistakes (thin walls, overdrafts, etc.) and flag your design. You may never have to call on a live manufacturing engineer. As such, it comes closest to putting and manufacturing an engineer’s brain in your computer for a hands-off, rapid part creation — the closest thing to this-is-what-I-want-now-just-make-it push button manufacturing. For all of us Spock-types (RIP, Leonard Nimoy) for whom humans are puzzles, it can be a straight shot, a machine birth without human complications. At least some of the time.

For the design engineer who considers their part totally defined and ready, nothing at this moment would be simpler than sending their 3D part file to Proto Labs. No other company is as far down the road to push button manufacturing.

What about Autodesk and Delcam?

The biggest deal so far in the CAD/CAM world so far has been Autodesk and Delcam. With it came the promise that the worlds of 3D mechanical design would merge with part manufacturing. However, Autodesk remains scattered as to its approach to manufacturing. Delcam continues to exist as a separate manufacturing portfolio, its products operated by those on the manufacturing side, just as before. Though it adds to Autodesk’s top line, Autodesk is making little attempt to automate the manufacturing process from inside Inventor using any its acquired manufacturing software, either Delcam or HSMWorks — to create anything that resembles push button manufacturing. The closest Autodesk comes to push-button manufacturing is its 3D printer, one more in the growing sea of 3D printers available. And as with them all, it is a point solution in the spectrum of manufacturing possibilities.

All major CAD programs are tied up with CAM, somehow. Many are in 3rd party partner programs. Some CAM products are under the roof of CAD companies, yet they continue to be operated as separate camps. Autodesk maintains a third party CAM vendor list, though it has withered after its CAM acquisitions. SOLIDWORKS has its CAM partners, notably MasterCAM, GibbsCAM, CAMWorks, SolidCAM and others. PTC and Siemens also have long-standing, trusted CAM partners.

Despite CAD tie-ins, CAM exists as a specialized discipline. Few design engineers can hope to match knowledge with a manufacturing engineer, or even a machinist. It’s a whole different world, with machine code, speeds and feeds. It’s messy, the cutting fluids, chips are flying . . . . Engineers can scratch the surface of this world, many dabble in it, some even make a hobby of it, but in the end, our day job is at a desk with a workstation with design software.

Let’s Get Together

It’s been a while since we looked at Proto Labs (Get Real - Proto Labs One Off Parts Made with Actual Engineering Materials, Feb 10, 2011).

I am reminded of them at SOLIDWORKS World 2015, where it occurs to me that . . . Proto Labs could be the answer to my dreams! Push button manufacturing comes true!

But for push button manufacturing to happen, there has to be a merger of the companies. Proto Labs was the first SOLIDWORKS manufacturing networks partner (Proto Labs Joins MySolidWorks Manufacturing Network ). (Could this be a dance before that wedding?)

Proto Labs’ functions need to exist in a SOLIDWORKS menu, as SOLIDWORKS commands. SOLIDWORKS is already a common, comfortable interface to more than a million users. It is a trusted design tool. To take a part out of SOLIDWORKS and send it to Proto Labs still seems like throwing it over the wall, with the uncertainty of dealing with a new company, a new process. Getting a new vendor is work. To work inside of SOLIDWORKS, better than one of its Gold Partners, talk in the language of design engineers, not machinists, reduce the number of pop-up warnings one can get in Proto Labs, increase the automations with less back-and-forth . . . . This can only happen if the developers of both companies meet under one roof, with one goal: push button manufacturing from a CAD program.

Buy Proto Labs Already

	Proto Labs	Dassault Systemes
Annual Sales (2014)	$185M	$2.7B
Market Cap	$1.74B	$14.8B
Employees	749	10,764

source: Forbes 

An acquisition by Dassault Systemes (SOLIDWORKS’ parent company) seems doable. Let’s say Proto Labs could be had for 3x revenue,* a very general rule of thumb for acquisition, its price would be $555M. DS is used to deals this size, having just paid $750M earlier this year for Accelrys, maker of molecular modeling software. It bought RTT, maker of visualization software at the end of 2013, which had about the same number of employees as does Proto Labs. It paid $350M for SOLIDWORKS in 1997, which judging from more recent acquisitions and SOLIDWORKS ongoing success, seems to have quite a bargain and its best deal ever.

Happy Ending?

The dream now has a happy ending. Both sides of the equation are solved. I imagine tens of millions of part orders raining down on Proto Labs from all of the SOLIDWORKS users, who now can go all the way to a physical part, rather than be interrupted by having to deal with a manufacturing process, which only slows them down. It gets better, if you can imagine. Their creativity unleashed, the engineers only too happy to be masters of their own destiny, create more, better designs, more often. Proto Labs can’t keep up and has to increase their capacity, buying more manufacturing machines, more 3D printers to meet demand as it is now handling the production from the vast majority of engineers out there. As Proto Labs has to ship physical parts to customers, it must locate its facilities to avoid borders, taxes and tariffs and reduce shipping costs. Engineers find that their designs are actually being manufactured in their own countries. Manufacturing returns to its own shores, rather than it being sent to cheap labor markets in Asia. It is the manufacturing of today, fast turnaround, one-offs and custom products, small production runs — but all done on a ridiculously large scale, as everyone becomes a manufacturer as manufacturing is suddenly accessible to all who have access to design software.

Will The Marriage Take Place?

Acquisitions are difficult to predict with any certainty. Applying a logic and reason or exposing a crying need is insufficient to close a deal. Companies do secret dances and engage in back room discussions which are never revealed. Often, a deal in the works can be derailed due to “cultural incompatibility,” greed (acquired company execs want to get too rich in the transaction), or some business issue. Even the most obvious matches-made-in-heaven just never happen and we never know why.

Software vendors, even big ones, are in the habit of saying “they are not in the hardware business” and Proto Labs is essentially a hardware company. As if saying that you would not want them to try to make a product they had no experience making, all the time planning acquisitions that lands them smack in an industry they know nothing about. (PTC buys Arbortext, Dassault buys Accelrys, Autodesk buys Socialcam, to name just a few). CAD companies refer to their products as “solutions.” But a real solution solves a problem or fills a need. The picture on the screen, no matter how pretty, is only a means to an end. An engineer needs a part he can hold and use. Design and manufacturing are interlinked to the point that neither can function without the other, yet both exist as pieces of the solution. A true CAD visionary with means needs to lead the way for Proto Labs acquisition — and practically everyone who uses CAD, now or in the future, will thank him.

----

*Should the CAD CEOs panic at the thought of being left behind, a bidding war for Proto Labs could increase the price well over 3x.

SolidCAM Races Through Parts

LAS VEGAS, NV (Autodesk University 2014) — Autodesk may have bought Delcam and HSMWorks, much to the chagrin of their third-party CAM partners, resulting in an awkward relationship with the remaining CAM partners. SolidCAM, however, is not about to give up.

SolidCAM continues to insist upon its superiority — chief among them its speed, which claims that its patented cutting (iMachining) process optimizes speed and varies the depth of the cut. SolidCAM claims to shave machining time by “70 percent and more.”

 

SolidCAM allows the user to control the aggressiveness of the cut with a simple “machining level” slider bar interface

 

One customer, Burns Machinery (see video above), had been cutting using only a quarter of its 2-inch long cutter. Using SolidCAM, Burns now claims to use the full cutting edge “most of the time.”

SolidCAM works inside the Inventor interface. While it may not be a great advantage to have a machinist operate a CAD program, it does serve to preserve intelligent features created in Inventor — something a file transfer from CAD to CAM would remove.

SolidCAM makes a copy of the model for its purpose that is synched with the original model. Additional geometry that might be added in the manufacturing process is added on their own layer. SolidCAM allows the machinist to disregard certain Inventor features (like small fillets) that would be difficult to send to a CNC machine.

SolidCAM makes a version for SOLIDWORKS users, too.

More information
http://www.solidcam.com/

Autodesk Throws Party for Titan America

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - If you have a machine shop in America, you have a problem. There are thousands like you. Many are going under or about to, their machines idle, operators laid off, victims of large scale decline in domestic manufacturing.

What do you do? If you are Titan Gilroy, you appeal to America.

 

The burly and tattooed Titan, who gives his name to his business, looks every bit like the fighter he once was. A one time serious amateur boxer, it was street fighting that got him in trouble with the law (he served 3 years in prison). Somehow he ends up owning a machine shop in California's gold country. If that is not enough of a career twist, he is also now in the media business.

Titan Media has produced TV show and lined up Autodesk to throw VIP party to launch its premiere show, in which the Titan story is told.

Titan is perfect for adding the role of restoring pride in his country. Citing America at least one a sentence, he combines the fervor of a evangelical preacher with the beat of a Detroit rapper. The crowd in the Autodesk Gallerey is lapping it up. It may be that the show tells a good story or that the room is stocked with Titan employees, but whoops and hollers abound. We see how Titan's shop makes gun parts, his bullied youth, the boxing, a redemption by the Lord after the bout in prison. 

Titan Gilroy with Roopinder from the local liberal San Francisco press

It is a hell of a story. To hear it well received in ultra liberal San Francisco is a bit of a surprise.

With a "Fight for America" on his t-shirt, Titan is on a mission to not just keep his machine shop open, but to bring American manufacturing back to the forefront. It could tie into the buying local movement, which the San Francisco area has taken to heart, albeit for food. Why not buy locally made products? Yes, they cost more. But they keep guys like Titan and his employees employed. Off the streets. Off welfare.

Autodesk  CEO Carl Bass attends the Titan America VIP party

If business is an indication (company was expected to top $6M in revenue in 2008, according to a Wall Street Journal article on the Titan America website), Titan America does seem to be doing something right with its precision machining of high-value parts. In the video, we see Titan take on an order for hundreds of parts for thermal imaging rifle scope. Customer needs them by Thursday. Titan runs his machine shop around the clock and makes his employees do whatever it takes to produce the parts. We see one machinist almost getting fired after ramming a tool into a part causing a production delay. The parts are delivered almost on time. The machinist not fired (was actually spotted applauding during the premiere). A happy ending.

It remains to be seen if the concept could work well for manufacturing as volumes of mass production, which is the strength of overseas manufacturing, notably that in China. Though Titan's shop is stocked with state of the art CNC machines and with an over abundance of American pride, there is still the reality of paying the American worker 10 times more than a Chinese worker. The Titan operation works well for high value parts (the scope housing was $8K each) and with ultra-demanding schedules, when the customers are from the military, aerospace and medicine.

But what if your customer is a Wal-Mart shopper?

For more information

Titan America CNC website

Titan American Built - TV series, Fridays at 7pm, on MAVTV, available on Dish and DirecTV

Titan American Built Premier: The Fight for American Manufacturing - Sharon Stark, 3DPrint Press, Oct 26, 2014

Grass Valley Manufacturing Titan Featured in New TV Series - Mark Glover, Sacramento Bee, Oct 24, 2014

A Tale of a Young Boxer's Redemption - Dennis Nishi, Wall Street Journal, Dec 2, 2008

Related articles

Machine-shop owner launches reality show about American manufacturing

CAM-TOOL Shows Amazing Accuracy at SolidWorks World

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - C&G Systems, a Japanese with its North America office in Ontario, was showing CAM-TOOL for molds and dies. Though the booth emphasized speed (a cheetah motif was popular at the show) what caught our eye was the incredible precision of a machined part. An array of 0.004" diameter needles had been cut. It was accuracy unmatched on the show floor -- maybe anywhere. You have to see it to believe it. Video here http://youtu.be/nxfWj6n5DKs. CGS says it get this precision because it follows the exact shape of the part, not a triangulated mesh like other CAM programs, yet it can cut a part with similar speed.

 

TenLinks Show Judge

Alin Vargatu

For More Information

• CAM-TOOL - product information
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

SolidCAM Patented iMachining Speeds Up Part Production

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - A SolidWorks Gold partner, SolidCAM was showing their patented iMachining technology. Available as a separate module that runs with SolidCAM's other CAM modules, iMachining. claims to be radically faster than every other CAM product by progressing through material cutting away as much as it is capable of -- no more and no less. The implication is that the other CAM products are more cautious. But by not cutting as much metal with each pass takes more passes, more time. One SolidCAM customer on their website site is shocked by cutting a part in one minute which previously took five. "We have a happy cutter," says Shaun Mymudes, SolidCAM's COO, "We can cut with with the optimum chip thickness."

SolidCAM CEO and founder Dr Emil Somekh (left) and COO Shaun Mymudes showing results of their iMachining technology

TenLinks Show Judge

Roopinder Tara

For More Information

• www.solidcam.com
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

Sigmetrix CETOL Does Tolerance Analysis with SolidWorks

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - Sigmetrix specializes in tolerance analysis. It's CETOL 6 Sigma application will analyze SolidWorks part tolerance to help limit size and dimensional variations of parts that may render your assembly unassembleable. You can import DimXpert and annotations for use in CETOL. CETOL costs $20K per floating license and maintenance will cost $3,500 annually. maintenance

TenLinks Show Judge

Bryan McElyea

For More Information

• http://www.sigmetrix.com/
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

PAS Technology Creates CMM Programs from SolidWorks Parts

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - Sam Golan, one of the founders of Cimatron, wants to bring simulation into the world of inspection with his current company PAS Technology. If you use SolidWorks for modeling and CMM (computer modeling and measurement), you can use PAS to create automate the inspection process as PAS will create the paths for the CMM machine. PAS provides a library of desktop CMM machines.

TenLinks Show Judge

Roopinder Tara

For More Information

• PAS Technology website
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

OPTICAM for Wire EDM with SolidWorks

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - Camtek is a small German company with decades of experience in doing CAM for wire EDM. A few years ago, OPTICAM became available as a SolidWorks plug-in for wire EDM allowing users to create extremely detailed and small geometries. Camtek is staffed by an extremely dedicated bunch of specialists in the wire EDM area, which has many very special things to be considered when it comes to programming the NC code.

 

TenLinks Show Judge

Ralf Steck

For More Information

• OPTICAM - SolidWorks version
• TenLinks Best of Show coverage

CAMWorks Recommended for SolidWorks Users

SAN DIEGO, CA (SolidWorks World 2014) - CAMWorks, by Geometric, and on display at the annual SolidWorks user meeting, has been recommended for a Best of Show award by Jason Pancoast, veteran SolidWorks user. Jason had this to say about CAMWorks:

"CAMWorks has been a leader in SolidWorks-integrated CAM for a long time. I was amazed to see how capable and robust their machining software is to accommodate geometry changes and recreate a machining process based on a database of rules and best practices. Their booth was staffed with extremely knowledgeable experts who took joy in answering my questions, and diving into the software "under the hood" to explore the capabilities and explain its application. They helped me brainstorm how their software could be extended and integrated with other systems beyond SolidWorks to revolutionize how some companies approach CAM. Everyone who has SolidWorks and is doing CAM should look at adding CAMWorks to their process."

[Ed note: Jason works for CAPINC, a CAM-neutral SolidWorks VAR and does not endorse or provide any specific CAM solution]

http://www.camworks.com/

TenLinks Show Judge

Jason Pancoast