Long before a racing season concludes, the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team is
already thinking about improvements to the following year’s car. This complex process sees
the majority of car components redesigned. In production, the team relies heavily on
Vericut verification, simulation and optimisation software from CGTech, a core production
engineering resource at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team for over two decades.

Robert Brown, machine shop manager at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team, says:
“It’s changed the nature of how we work. Now, as soon as a decision is taken to carry over a
component type, we can use some of our spare ‘summer capacity’ to manufacture the carry
over, meaning we can focus on redesigned performance parts when they start arriving in
time for the following season.”

Production engineer James Peddle explains some of the major benefits: “To ascertain the
time required for the machining element of making a component, we simply use the output
time calculated by Vericut. The machine kinematics in Vericut’s virtual environment are such
that we’re confident the time reported will match the real run time.”

Today, producing complex redesigned components economically and safely is seemingly
unthinkable without the help of Vericut.
“Primarily it would be unsafe and massively labour intensive,” states Brown. “I think the
days are gone when you can just read the X, Y, Z co-ordinates of the G and M codes on the
screen – not with the complexity of parts today. At peak times, one operator will be
responsible for multiple machines, running brand new CNC code. Ensuring the machines run
safely without using Vericut? Forget it.”
For more information www.cgtech.co.uk

SolidCAM UK says the company validated its admission of being one of the most powerful CAM systems in the world at its stand at the recent MACH 2024 exhibition in Birmingham.

Customer Sinclair Harding (UK) kindly displayed one of its refined clocks on SolidCAM UK’s stand throughout the week-long event. At MACH, attendees could see for themselves the result of hard work through studying and preserving original production techniques, blended with the introduction of new modern technology.

“If I’m going to call myself a clockmaker, I decided we’re going to make pretty much all of the parts in-house for each clock,” says Bob Bray, the company’s managing director. “A combination of traditional clockmaking and modern technology allows us to produce a clock with soul and character.”

This maker of fine clocks, based in Emley, West Yorkshire, machines a remarkable 99% of its parts in-house, which the company states would not be possible without its CAM software, training and support. Despite continuing to use the firm’s previous CAM software alongside, owing to the newer SolidCAM simultaneous five-axis capabilities, Sinclair Harding is now producing parts that it could only dream of before.

“Before SolidCAM we didn’t have the control over tool paths and operations like we do now,” says Bray. “SolidCAM allows us to control factors like step overs, lead in and lead out, where we can get the best quality surface finish on something where traditionally we probably wouldn’t be able to achieve a good finish.”

Utilising SolidCAM means that when Sinclair Harding does all of its hand finishing, the company saves a lot of time.

For further information www.solidcam.com

Lantek found that manufacturers in the sheet metal industry were ready to integrate all their production and business systems at the recent MACH 2024 exhibition in Birmingham. By demonstrating its Lantek Expert software, which is capable of nesting and programming parts for hundreds of makes and models of cutting machines, visitors could see how to increase business efficiency and reduce workloads by automating and integrating their operating systems.

Commercial director Adam Ball says: “Sheet metal is a niche industry and, at Lantek, we’ve been working and developing solutions in this sector for more than 35 years. Over 32,000 companies use Lantek to drive their sheet metal machinery and many of them already depend entirely on Lantek software to run every aspect of their business.”

Advances in how companies work can be introduced in stages, making it easy to implement Lantek’s technology gradually with the minimum disruption. By adding IQuoting, for example, companies can achieve consistent and highly accurate pricing in a few minutes. This takes the subjectivity out of the task as well as the tedious calculations involved and, when hundreds of quotes are necessary, saves many hours of work.

New at MACH, Lantek demonstrated machine connectivity. This capability enables real-time feedback from the workshop on the status of machines and parts, and the time taken during manufacture. Not only does this make it easy to find parts in production and check delivery date targets, it also keeps track of costs to make sure every component is profitable.

Lantek’s Integra software brings the whole system together, connecting to existing accounting and business systems, delivering MES capability, controlling stock levels, subcontracted parts, non-CNC operations and traceability of material and more. For more information www.lantek.com