Delcam unveils latest innovations at Asian Technical Summit

Delcam, the world’s largest distributor of CAM software held its 10th Annual Technical Summit in Pune, India, late last year, announcing major initiatives and future strategies. Australian company representative Keith Watts attended the Show and filed this report ...

In his opening address to the Asian Technical Summit, Delcam Managing Director Clive Martell told delegates: “It is not sufficient to rely just on local labor in your country to be competitive. “You really do need to use the best technology available and to look at your quality processes to support that activity if you want to be a world class company.”

And the proof is in the pudding.

Delcam has enjoyed market leader status for the last 10 years and continues to grow from strength to strength.

With headquarters in the UK, Delcam now has offices in the US, Europe, India, Asia, Australia and NZ.

Victorian based Camplex Pty Ltd distributes Delcam products in Australia.

Delcam’s increased market share over the last decade has been achieved by the growth in sales of their established PowerMILL and ArtCAM systems and the acquisition of the FeatureCAM and PartMaker families of software.

Another important factor is the addition of many new programs, in particular the Delcam for SolidWorks integrated CAM system and the dedicated software for the dental and orthotics industries in healthcare.

The company continues to take market share from weaker competitors and expand its sales network, especially in Asia (including Australasia), which enjoyed a significant 48 percent increase in new software license sales.

Delcam’s strategy includes an increased investment in R &D. “This year we will be looking at investing 10 million pounds (AUS$16 million) in research and development,” said Martell.

“Also, we have the largest development team in the industry (165 people) working on our CAM software.”

At the summit Delcam unveiled many of its new products and future innovations.

This included the fastest ever PowerMILL, the world’s leading CAM specialist provider for high speed machining and multi-axis machining.

Its unique power and flexibility allows for easy use, rapid toolpath generation, the ability to use with all tool types, powerful toolpath editing and integrated toolpath verification. Benefits include lower manufacturing costs, reduced delivery times, improved working processes, shop floor programming, productivity increase, better quality moulds, superior finish, faster production and the maximum benefit from investment in high accuracy and high speed machining equipment.

Mark Gadsden, Business Development Manager, Delcam says the latest PowerMILL 2010 is two and a half times faster than before. And it now allows for multi-threading.
Automation makes it easier for programmers to pick up PowerMILL and use it.

Ground breaking new strategies include:

Corner Clearance Roughing – This removes material left in corners benefiting in a reduction of cutter wear, tooling cost and tooling time.

Roughing Improvements – The ability to avoid machining thin slivers of material.

Tool Holder Profile – The maximum tool profiles can be calculated for multiple toolpaths.

Smooth 3D offset – Improved surface finishing and machining time.

Rest Rough Ordering – Huge improvements have been made.

5-Axis Collision Avoidance – Intelligent 5-axis control avoids potential collision benefiting in a smoother machine motion and improved surface finish.

IntelliStock – A new finishing strategy option that helps avoid the tool damage that occurs by machining excess stock and also helps avoid air cutting when no stock exists.

Flowline Machining – A new innovation developed to achieve faster federates and better surface finish by generating smoother toolpaths without rapid changes in cutting direction.

For further information about Delcam products visit:

Camplex Pty Ltd
www.camplex.com.au