Supreme Tool and Die in Fenton, Missouri has manufactured die-cast dies used to cast aluminum, magnesium, and zinc parts for the automotive, industrial equipment and electronics industries since 1977.

 

Traditionally, three factors determine success or failure in the business: quality, delivery, and price. Today, quick delivery and competitive pricing are the biggest challenges. Owner Robert Hughes found that time required to cut parts on NC machines and the time spent testing new NC programs limited Supreme’s flexibility in biding new jobs.

 

Three full-time NC programmers typically create 30 new NC programs per month. On average, six man hours and four machine hours are required to test each new program with plastic foam. That totals 180 man hours and 120 machine hours per month - more than $100,000 in lost productivity. "We don’t get paid to test new NC programs," says Hughes. To increase productivity, Joe Glass, senior CNC programmer, investigated several NC verification software programs and selected VERICUT.

 

In the past, when an error was detected the NC machine would sit idle while the programmer made the correction. Now programmers at Supreme catch error before machining. "Our NC machines run 24 hours a day, five days a week," says Hughes.

 

Glass points out, "When programming with a CAM system, sometimes the tool path you get is not what you wanted. We find areas where we’re conventional cutting instead of climb cutting, areas where a tool might go too deep into the work piece, or cutting an area that has already been machined. Nothing feels worse than ruining a part when it’s nearly finished."

 

Additionally, plastic foam test parts are too brittle to reveal minor undercuts, gouges, or scallop height problems. With VERICUT, these problems are identified before the first chip flies.

 

The bottom line? Using VERICUT has made Supreme’s existing machine tools more productive. Enthusiasm is up, delivery times have been reduced, and pricing is more competitive.