After a decade of mergers between aerospace companies such as Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman and most recently Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, the aerospace industry has gone through some significant changes. Among these are down sizing of their work force and the trend to subcontract a good deal of manufacturing work. At the same time, the major aerospace companies have trimmed their supplier lists to include only their most dependable suppliers. Of these, they demand lower prices and higher quality. With the recent surge in commercial aircraft orders and the continuation of major defense programs, such as the C-17, the demand on these suppliers has never been greater. Within those group of suppliers who manufacture complex structural aircraft parts, NC programmers are in short supply and high demand. As with any time the demand for a service or product is high, the entrepreneurial spirit of America is awakened.

An example of this are the dozens of NC programming service bureaus that have opened across the country during the last several years. This new breed of service company ranges from a one man company operating out of a home to larger organizations employing many NC programmers. A look at several of these companies reveals that many of them have something in common. They have chosen to use NCL multi-axis machining software, developed by Numerical Control Computer Sciences (NCCS) in Irvine, CA as their primary Computer-Aided Manufacturing system. NCL is a powerful Computer-Aided Manufacturing software package which generates simultaneous 2 through 5-axis NC tool paths and provides parametric 3-D modeling. All geometric modeling and tool path functions are fully associative. A change to the model results in an immediate change to corresponding tool paths. NCL is ideally suited for environments where design changes are frequent, such as the aerospace industry. NCL also supports full parametric programming where a family of parts can be machined by simply filling in a form. NCL is used extensively in the aerospace, turbo-machinery, power generation, and composite industries. Why have these companies chosen to use the NCL/CAM software and what is their secret to success?

Calculated Engineering - San Clemente, California
Calculated Engineering was founded in 1987 by Dave Wareham. Specializes in complex structural aircraft parts, the company currently employs three full time NC programmers. Says Mr. Wareham, "Demand has never been greater for our services. Calculated does work for many of the Southern California job shops in the aerospace industry, as well as shops in other states such as Texas and Oklahoma. Our customers expect us to be experts in our field and therefore subcontract to us only the most difficult parts. Since half of the projects that we work on are for production parts, machine time is absolutely critical. Our customers demand that we provide the most efficient programs."

"For this reason we chose NCL. It provides us with the ability to optimize our NC programs to a degree that would be difficult with other NC programming systems. For example NCL provides acceleration and deceleration feedrate control. This allows us to slow the cutter down when moving into areas with a higher concentration of material, like a closed angled corner in a pocket. As the cutter moves into the material, the system will automatically decrease the feedrate. When exiting the corner the original feedrate will resume. NCL also provides precise control over cutting feedrates at any place in the NC program. If, for example, the tool was moving over an area where no material was being removed the feedrate could be changed to a rapid feedrate and then slowed down as it re-entered the material. This type of control allows us to achieve the efficiency our customers demand."

GoTo NC Programming - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
GoTo NC Programming was founded by Glen Orpen who purchased his first NCL system with his VISA card. GoTo NC has been able to secure programming contracts from all over the United States. Says Glen Orpen, "When I decided to go into business on my own, I knew I needed a system that would be flexible enough to handle all of my customers’ requirements. Whether it be five axis hole drilling, complex milling or 2-1/2 axis milling, I wanted to be able to provide a full service. What’s more, I needed a system that would allow me to easily maintain the NC programs for my customers including the ability to incorporate Engineering Change Orders (ECO’s)."

"The NCL software is fully associative which makes it easy to incorporate even complex changes. For example, if I receive an ECO that requires me to move a pocket wall or change the thickness of the part, I simply modify the geometry and NCL will automatically regenerate the tool path. This of course is invaluable in the aerospace industry where changes to designs are made frequently and often right up to the point where the part is put on the machine. The ability to make changes easily enables me to keep my prices lower and deliver modified programs to my customers faster."

Bies Tool Engineering
Bies Tool Engineering has been using the NCL software since the late 1980s. The recent upswing in the aerospace industry has enabled them to upgrade their entire system to use state-of-the art Silicon Graphics computers and to add additional seats of the software. Says Joe Bies, "I have been using the NCL software for a number of years and appreciate the ability of the software to perform part families, which is critical to my business. I often receive orders from my customers for a part family, which are a series of similar parts, but of varying sizes. Often the contract requires that both a right and left hand part be manufactured. An example of such a part family would be the titanium or aluminum ribs that help form the structure of an aircraft wing. The NCL software allows us to create a part program for a single part, optimize the program and then use that same strategy to generate the tool motion for each part in the family. The amount of effort required to program the subsequent parts in the family is a fraction of what it takes to create the initial program."

CAMXL
CAMXL is situated in the sheep grazed hills of South Wales and services companies throughout Western Europe, Israel and the United States. CAMXL employs in-house programmers and is capable of supplying programmers to work at a customers’ site. Says Andy Price, co-founder of CAMXL, "Because of the high demand for NC programming services and the short supply of skilled NC programmers, we felt compelled to train our own programmers. The NCL software has allowed us to do this, yet maintain the same quality that our customers expect. NCL allows us to capture manufacturing methods and cutting techniques developed by our expert programmers and encapsulate them into functions that can be used by the entire programming staff, including the trainees. Therefore, our new programmers are able to produce the same quality results as our expert programmers."

These are just a few of the companies who have taken advantage of state-of-the-art technology to benefit from the dramatic changes in the aerospace industry. According to Robert Conway, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at NCCS, "Our sales to service companies such as these represents a significant percentage of our new system sales, and the trend is continuing."