NCL NewsLetter

CAD/CAM Software Boosts Production
The key to successful manufacturing lies in the effective use of innovative technology, especially within the aerospace market. With many requirements such as quality, on-time delivery and competitive rates, a manufacturer must differentiate itself in a market saturated with competition. More importantly, producing efficient part programs is necessary to stay ahead of the competition in the aerospace arena. In today's market, manufacturing plants must take advantage of current trends in the aerospace industry and invest in the right technology to achieve success.

As the U.S. aerospace industry took an economic downturn a few years past, Arden Engineering was forced to re-engineer itself to remain a strong and competitive company. Arden struggled to keep costs down while providing its customers with the best value possible. Over time, part production became increasingly cumbersome, taking three times as long as their competitors. With productivity down, higher production costs, and increasing end user costs, it became evident that investing in new technology was necessary to stay ahead of its competition.

Established in 1979 with 10 employees, Arden Engineering Incorporated has grown to 110+ diverse employees occupying 66,310 square feet in its own manufacturing plant on 2.45 acres of land in Orange County, CA. Arden serves the aerospace industry, specializing in on-site engineering, programming, three-, four-, and five-axis CNC machining and assembly of structural aerospace components. The type of parts manufactured include a diversification in commercial, military, regional jet aircraft, helicopter and space vehicles, in support of 21 customers in 30 locations throughout the world.

Accepting the Challenge
Arden Engineering is committed to meeting its customer's expectations. John Fairris, Sales & Marketing and Paul Roe, programming manager recognized the need for increased cost savings while meeting individual design needs of customers. With production slowing and costs increasing, a decision was made to reinvent itself. The company chose to update its CNC equipment and purchase the NCL CAM system from NCCS. This enabled the company to build diverse high precision aircraft components, some up to 20 feet long.

Increase in Efficient Programming
With the NCL programming system added to the company's repertoire, Arden gained a reputation for complete customer satisfaction. The company selected NCL primarily for its advanced functionality and tool control. Immediately, NCL cut production time in half while lowering customer costs. With a library of aerospace application macros already pre-loaded, easily accessible with a click of the mouse, the company was able to save up to 50% of its programming time generating toolpaths.

Arden benefited from NCL's five-axis roughing capability automatically calculating a contour or rectangular stock model, enabling Arden to quickly rough large imported models. The system calculates the extent of the area to machine, minimizing programming time and reducing inefficiencies.

NCL Improves Productivity

NCL allows users to achieve higher productivity with more flexibility and greater speed. NCL's key features that helped resolve the company's situation are its macro capability and full tool control with unparalleled flexibility. This combination made programming more efficient.

Arden's programmers are benefited by NCL's macro capability and full tool control. Its discrete control of the cutting motion is critical for successful programming of Arden's five-axis machines. NCL allows the programmer control of the entry, exit, and stepover moves in between. Its simultaneous five-axis machining capability allowed Arden to machine its complex parts with all five axes at once. NCL is one of the few high-end CAM systems that allow true simultaneous five-axis machining, thereby saving time by machining complex aerospace parts in a single setup. Machining structural parts, such as bulkheads with deep pockets, can be done faster and more efficiently with simultaneous five-axis machining.

Arden also uses PostWorks universal 2 through 10-axis postprocessor and postprocessor generator. It converts output from most major CAM systems into NC data files, which can be used to run virtually any device including mills, lathes, mill/turns, CMMs, lasers, ultrasonic cutters, and routers. The simple interface enabled Arden to easily establish machine configurations, control unit features, and output file formats. The comprehensive macro language of PostWorks made customization more time and cost effective.

Center of Excellence
Arden is now spoken of as a low maintenance supplier, with parts delivered on-time and to the customer's specifications. "This is a major cost savings value we provide to our customers. Time is money and the addition of NCL has enabled us to reduce the time required in managing the supplier, while providing confidence in quality and on-time delivery", states John Fairris, Sales & Marketing.

"At Arden Engineering, we are committed to creating solutions for our customers. NCL gives us the ability to design fixtures and program CNC machines around the customer's specific design needs. The utilization of NCL paired with our high-tech equipment allowed us to increase part production and reduce the cost of manufacturing by 50%, which is passed on to our valued customers", comments Paul Roe, programming manager.

To be successful in the aerospace industry requires much commitment and dedication. Without this, the ability to compete will be hampered and opportunities will be hard to come by. Arden has indeed met the challenge and delivered! With the addition of NCL, Arden Engineering now has the skill to respond quickly to customer demands by reducing programming, tooling, and production times.

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Technical Tips
Did You Know.....?

...That if you are using a Network Floating USB Dongle for NCCS Software Licensing and are updating this license received from NCCS every six months:
				The information is the same for each machine that is licensed to the Network Dongle. Run the License facility and enter the new licensing on one machine and then simply distribute the C:\NCCS\License\NCCS_LICENSE.DBA file to the other machines licensed to the Network Floating USB Dongle.
		...That you can merge two unibase files:
					An easy way to do this is to use UBFN in conjunction with GET/RENAME. The following example will result in a unibase file containing both a left and right hand model of the same part. The merged surfaces will be named according to the DEFNAM command.
							Example loadu/righthand.u PL1=PL/1,0,0,0 MX1=mx/(mx/transl, 12,0,0),(mx/mirror,PL1) refsys/mx1 defnam/SF,LSF,index ubfn/righthand.u get/rename,sf ubfn/close saveu/merget.u
	...That when developing macros that are intended to be called interactively:
						Add the line 'prompt/macro-name,"class","description"' where 'macro-name' is the name of the macro and 'class' specifies the macro class, 'description' is a description of the macros function. This prompt line allows a description of the macro to appear on the dynamic macro call form. For macros that are not intended to be called interactively, specify NONE as the class. 'NONE' is a special macro class that will not display on the macro call form.
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New Strategies Provides Greater Five-axis Functionality
Available from NCCS, NCL multi-axis machining software is used in the aerospace, automotive and turbo machinery industry. New capabilities have been added to the flow-line milling option that automates the machining strategy of tool paths created within NCL.

Automated Flow-line Milling
Flow-line milling is typically used to machine rib-top and fillet surfaces. Among the new strategies that have been added to the flow-line milling option include:

The ability to machine multiple surfaces in a single operation. This capability further extends its existing machining capability and provides the user with a greater five-axis milling functionality.
The option of milling around avoidance surfaces. This new option improves surface finishes and reduces machine tool wear.
The ability to control the axis of the tool with a secondary part surface to assist in machining highly curved surfaces. This features is designed to offer the user more tool control when working with complicated five-axis parts.

According to David Schultz, NCCS' Manager of CAD/CAM Applications, "NCL's five-axis capability offers users more tool control than any other CAM system on the market. Applying the multi-surface five-axis flow-line machining automates the machining strategy and reduces the amount of time users spend machining five-axis tool paths".
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What's Ahead...
Westec
NCCS will be participating in the upcoming Westec Advanced Productivity Exposition March 31 ~ April 1, 2008. Come see us at booth #3175 for a demo of our latest 5-axis CAM solution!

V9.6 Seminars
NCCS will be offering free informational training seminars. Stay tuned for the upcoming dates!

Version 9.6
NCL Version 9.6 will be available soon.
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Words of Wisdom...
"A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill."
- Robert A. Heinlein

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his
acts with his life."
- Robert A. Heinlein

"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss."
- Robert A. Heinlein

"Being right too soon is socially unacceptable."
- Robert A. Heinlein

"The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive."
- Robert A. Heinlein
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Class Schedule - Corporate Headquarters


	NCL General Programming December 3-7, 2007 January 28-Feb 01, 2008 *NCL/IPV* December 10-11, 2007 *PostWorks* December 12-14, 2007

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