Oxfordshire-based Caffyn Engineering, established in October 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, provides subcontract CNC engineering services to a wide range of sectors. One of managing director Charlie Caffyn’s first major decisions was to invest in PSL Datatrack production control software.

With extensive experience in the precision engineering industry, Caffyn was already a seasoned user of PSL Datatrack.

“I was determined to build the business around first-class customer service and using PSL Datatrack to run it from the outset was vital, and a no-brainer for me in terms of investment,” he says. “It’s easy to use, tracing and controlling every order from quotation to invoice, and showing me exactly what’s happening on the shop floor.”

Caffyn knew that the system would ensure efficient shop-floor activity and provide him with full visibility over material and production planning, enabling the company to meet one of its primary goals: on time deliveries.

“We have a very good reputation as far as delivering on our promise is concerned,” he says. “Moving forward, PSL Datatrack will play an even greater role in keeping this intact.”

In less than a year the company had already moved to larger premises in Watlington. To cope with extra business, Caffyn Engineering has also taken on more staff and invested in two new CNC milling machines, a CMM and a bandsaw alongside its existing Hurco CNC lathe and three-axis machining centre.

Caffyn Engineering is now looking towards ISO 9001 accreditation and the investment already made in PSL Datatrack will play a key role in achieving this ambition, with its emphasis on traceability and quality throughout the entire production process. As the business continues to grow, it is possible to seamlessly add and integrate further modules with existing ones.
For further information www.psldatatrack.com

FourJaw, the tech start-up behind the cloud-based ‘fitness tracker’ for manufacturing has launched its next-generation machine monitoring platform: an operational tool that enables manufacturers to achieve big gains in factory floor productivity. The new platform features a simplified and more intuitive dashboard design, an enhanced mobile experience, powerful new work-list imports, and a dedicated reporting section. Developed after more than 12 months of customer feedback and industry learning, FourJaw 2.0 offers improved functionality while additional features empower manufacturers with the information they need to understand, manage and improve factory floor operations.

FourJaw co-founder and CTO, Robin Hartley-Willows, says: “The feedback from our customers across the country has been invaluable, enabling us to create FourJaw 2.0, an operational tool developed to meet the needs of everyone in the business, including machine operatives, cell leads, factory managers and managing directors.

“The big takeaway from the feedback is that manufacturers don’t want huge quantities of data to interrogate and scrutinise – that would just mean more workload for people who are already very busy,” he continues. “What they need is an easy-to-use operational tool that guides them with the right information at the right time, helps them to manage the complexities of the factory floor and enables the continuous improvement process.”

For existing customers, FourJaw 2.0 will offer a seamless upgrade of the existing app. What they get, however (along with new customers), is an iterative tool that evolves to meet their needs.

Says Hartley-Willows: “We founded FourJaw in the belief that productive manufacturing elevates individuals, communities and our society. While FourJaw 2.0 is a significant milestone in our journey, it’s also the foundation for our wider company roadmap that ends with every manufacturer achieving their productivity potential.”
For further information www.fourjaw.com

CGTech has released Version 9.3 machine simulation, verification and optimisation software for all types of CNC machining, additive and hybrid manufacturing processes. The software operates independently, but also integrates with all major CAM systems.

Vericut 9.3 focuses on creating ‘smarter’, more efficient manufacturing processes with features that bring in data around the machine, the tools and the stock to improve simulation and the overall manufacturing workflow. Improvements have been made to strengthen Vericut’s core, including improved collision checking, increasing the limit on axes per sub-system, and cutting tool data in Tool Performance.

“With enriched machining metrics, Force feed rate and tool deflection optimisation, this latest Vericut release creates the most highly optimised, yet safe-to-run NC programs for any CNC machine,” states Gavin Powell, managing director at CGTech Ltd.

Vericut’s integrated optimisation module, Vericut Force, has also received additional features and enhancements in 9.3. Alongside improvements to core features and functionality, deflection calculations have changed to account for the entire rotating tool assembly, where previous versions only accounted for solid round tools with holders. This change in deflection, along with cutting tool data and information about stock material, improves part surface finish, ensures the components meets the appropriate dimensions, and extends cutter life.

“We’ve seen up to 40% more tool life and 30-40% savings in machining cycle time when using Vericut Force,” says Jason Mills, engineering manager at Sheffield-based Advanced Manufacturing Ltd (AML). “The module is invaluable for our production work as it provides us with a competitive edge. It’s quite easy to understand. We simply pick the material from the database and input the cutter geometry, which we get from the tooling manufacturer. Force then does its calculations in the background.”
For further information www.cgtech.co.uk

ModuleWorks has released its 2022.08 CADCAM software components for digital manufacturing. This is the second major ModuleWorks release of 2022 and contains new and enhanced features across the entire product range, including new custom tool shapes for roughing, automatic tool axis control and vector interpolation for the machine simulation.

With a new feature for creating generic revolved tools, operators can customise the shape of the tool’s cutting and non-cutting parts for all triangle mesh-based roughing strategies. Customised tools avoid over-simplification because they take specific features of the tool shape into account during the tool-path calculation to deliver a realistic simulation of the material removal process.

Another new feature is automatic tool axis control for multi-axis finishing. In automatic mode, the contact point, as well as the lead and lag angles, are automatically defined according to each available tool. This capability reduces programming time and simplifies tool axis definition.

The RTCP ON command in the ModuleWorks Machine Simulation has a new option called ‘by vectors’. Between any two moves, the Machine Simulation interpolates the tool’s movement to ensure the tool tip points are located on a line and the tool vectors are located on a plane. It is possible to control the size of the interpolation steps, and the command requires no machine kinematic knowledge, making it straightforward to use.

The ModuleWorks 2022.08 release is available now for download from the ModuleWorks website.
For further information www.moduleworks.com

A new version of the OPC UA for Machine Tools Companion Specification is now available. The joint working group of the OPC Foundation is supported by the VDW (German Machine Tools Manufacturers’ Association) and has produced a supplement that makes it possible to integrate existing inventory systems. The collection of important operating data and KPIs gives rise to further advantages.

Dr Wilfried Schäfer, executive director of the VDW, is pleased with the progress: “The update of the specification for machine tools sees us pass a further important milestone. This will make the use of the Companion Specifications even more attractive in the future and ensure greater acceptance among industry clients. We hope to provide demonstrations at upcoming trade fairs. Our umati connectivity initiative showcases the open data exchange in a tangible form and naturally plays an important role in this.”

Numerous OPC UA Companion Specifications for machine and plant engineering are currently in development. They enable open interface standards based on OPC UA to be used between machines, devices and software. Just under 50 such specifications are already available or are currently under development. However, before the exchange of data via existing interfaces or systems can be translated into new, open standards, it is becoming clear that future-proof technologies such as OPC UA must first be broadly established on the market. This applies in particular to shop-floor and machine data collection. In most cases, however, customers apply their own in-house standards, which is an obstacle to widespread standardisation.

The new extension of the OPC UA for Machine Tools Companion Specification addresses this dilemma. The first version concentrated on the global monitoring of machine tool status, whereas the focus of the next step, version 1.01.1, is on collecting important operating data and KPIs.
The update is available at https://umati.org/ua4mt