Hundreds of workers across the West Midlands have the opportunity to upskill thanks to a new initiative by The Black Country & Marches Institute of Technology (IoT). Companies can now access specialist training for members of staff aged 19+ on one of three Level 4 technical courses in automated machining, robotics and QA. The £500,000 In-Work Skills pilot, which will be delivered by the Marches spoke of the IOT at In-Comm Training in Telford, is free of charge and can be completed part-time and in modules, giving both staff and employers complete flexibility.

“Brexit and Covid has placed a lot of financial pressure on businesses and, in some cases, training budgets have been cut, meaning employees and bosses are missing out on vital skills development,” says Bekki Phillips, COO at In-Comm Training. “The In-Work Skills pilot has been designed to bridge this gap and will give manufacturers access to high-quality Level 4 technical courses at no cost to them.”

For further information https://in-comm.co.uk/

BAM GmbH, based in Weiden, Bavaria, is going all in with digital processes in an effort to reduce costs and project production times in contract manufacturing. With the support of Open Mind Technologies, BAM has used the hyperMILL Automation Center to streamline and markedly accelerate CAM programming, representing the final digital step in transitioning from customer design to finished workpiece. Automation has helped reduce CAM programming times in hyperMILL by 70-80%.

“Thanks to the powerful 2.5D, 3D and five-axis cycles of hyperMILL, we’ve succeeded in reducing set-up and programming times on our machining centres, resulting in greater efficiency and higher capacity utilisation,” states Stefan Bauer, head of manufacturing at BAM. “With its feature-based technology, macro databases and associated process, hyperMILL also provides a solid basis to automate programming and significantly reduce time expenditure by reusing pre-existing programming know-how.”

The hyperMILL Automation Center is built on feature and macro technology, allowing any user to standardise machining steps and automatically apply them to new workpieces. Open Mind honed and optimised the process for use at BAM. To handle a wide variety of orders and workpieces, the CADCAM developer integrated an interactive user guide that uses just a few parameters to control automated programming.

Marco Bauer, managing director of BAM, is extremely satisfied with the support provided by the team of hyperMILL experts. “Open Mind staff always provide us with expert support, even when dealing with highly complex applications and exotic projects,” he says. “One of the key factors for us was that Open Mind develops its software in-house. As a result, we were able to obtain customised functions for our automation projects very rapidly, which has helped us improve leaps and bounds.”

For further information
www.openmind-tech.com

Three VUE 2021 (Vericut User Exchange) events held in late 2021 attracted over 60 people from UK advanced manufacturing and technology companies. The events kicked-off at the British Motor Museum in Gaydon, followed by Aerospace Bristol and the Nikken Innovation Centre Europe in Rotherham. Technical staff from CGTech used the events to provide customers with a feature review of the enhancements made in the latest release of Vericut, version 9.2.

Attendees were welcomed by Gavin Powell, CGTech UK’s newly promoted managing director. “With the major features of version 9.2, Vericut offers its users even more protection and opportunities for productivity and efficiency gains,” he said. “Version 9.2 includes collision and performance improvements; new graphs and tool use windows that provide visual data in an easy-to-use format; enhanced support for hole-making tools; annotation and section for cutting tools; new cutter types; user-driven changes to improve multi-tool stations; and ‘Force’ and ‘Additive’ enhancements.”

Collision and performance improvements of v9.2 were demonstrated with material removal at tight cutting resolutions carried out up to 30% faster. Deep concave collision penetration has been enhanced, especially against high triangle count models, and an example of an impeller case highlighted the speed of the latest version, reducing the time required from 12 minutes in v9.1, to just 36 seconds.

Regarding hole making the CGTech technical team asked: ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ Very little with the support of Vericut v9.2 as the software now checks for wrong location, size or depth; cut deeper than flutes; motion not along tool axis; pre-drill operation before ream or tap; and incorrect feeds/speeds for tap.

For further information
www.cgtech.co.uk