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CHAPTER 10

MOULD DESIGN AND NC CODE GENERATION

USING CAM SOFTWARE

10.1 INTRODUCTION

During the past three decades, CAD/CAM engineers and their

supporting software engineers have brought out a handful of software which
not only enable the digitalisation of the products but also enable them to bring
out Numerical Control (NC) codes for machining components without much
human interference. On digitalisation, any product/component becomes
portable and leads to the creation of varieties of products and brands, and
facilitates their production within a short period of time. This is a
foundational characteristic which is required to be exploited for acquiring
agility in manufacturing arena. Quiet surprisingly, many of the traditional
industrial sectors have not imbibed the features of CAD/CAM for the purpose
of acquiring agility (Wagner et al 2001). During the module of the research
work being reported in this chapter, this aspect was investigated. This module
of the research work was pursued with the objective of investigating the
practical implications of adopting CAM phase of TADS in a traditional
manufacturing environment.

10.2 NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: CURRENT PRACTICE

AT SALZER

There has been very little effort exerted so far to develop new
products at Salzer. This is mainly due to the reason that the currently adopted
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new product development practice is largely carried out manually and the NC
code generation process is outsourced. The current practice being followed to
develop a new product, albeit done rarely is described here.

When a requirement arises to develop a new product, the design

and production engineers discuss and bring out the conceptual design of the
new product. Then, using drafting software, the 2D drawings of the
components of the new product are prepared. These drawings are sent to a
software developing company for developing NC codes which are required
for machining the dies of the components of new product.

Neither the executives nor the engineers of Salzer possess any

knowledge on the method applied by the software developing company to
generate the NC codes. Using the NC codes, the dies are machined at Salzer.
A careful study of this procedure would indicate that, this approach is devoid
of visualizing many alternative models of the new product. Further, this
procedure consumes about eight months to develop a new product. This is too
longer for a company like Salzer which is fast galloping towards acquiring
agility for becoming globally competitive.

10.3 NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: SUGGESTED

PRACTICE

In order to overcome the deficiencies observed in the current

practices of new product development which impede agility at Salzer, the
approach shown in Figure 10.1 is suggested.
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New products visualization through CAD models

Mould design using CAM package

NC code generation

Manufacture of dies

Figure 10.1 Suggested practice of new product development

As shown, the design process starts by developing several CAD

models in the computer screen. The brainstorming session among the
executives is conducted by referring to these models. Upon choosing one of
the models, a CAM package is used by the CAD/CAM engineers to generate
NC codes for machining dies. The machining of dies is visualized using the
simulation facility contained in the CAM package. Then the die is machined
using the NC codes generated by CAM package.

A careful study would indicate that the newly suggested practice

enables the selection of a model from many models which are created by
applying human creative thinking virtually in the computer screen itself.
Since the NC code generation is automated using CAM package, the NC
codes are generated within an hour with precision and accuracy. In total, this
practice would consume about two weeks at Salzer in comparison to the
current practice in which case, it consumes eight months. Thus, this newly
suggested practice would entail companies like Salzer to acquire agility at fast
pace and thereby achieve global competitiveness within a quick span of time.
The efforts made to investigate the practicality of this practice are described
in the following section.
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10.4 CAD MODEL OF NEW SWITCHES

According to the new procedure suggested in the previous section,

‘creative thinking’ exercise was applied to generate CAD models of new and
improved forms of ‘S’ type switch. As a sample, the model with design
change in the knob is shown in Figure 10.2.

Figure 10.2 CAD model of new switch with design change in the knob

This exercise indicated the easiness with which the new switch
could be designed. In normal practice, it will take several hours to
conceptualise and design a new switch. Because of the digitalisation of the
existing product using the CAD package, it is now possible to apply the
human intelligence and thinking ability to design new switches within a very
short period of time. This aspect is a major hallmark of AM.
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10.5 MOULD DESIGN

After the CAD models of components of the switch were

developed, the possibility of using them for manufacturing was studied. For
this purpose, the CAD model of front plate of the switch was chosen. This
CAD model was converted into STEP (Standard for Exchange of Product
Data) file. Then this STEP file was imported into Unigraphics (version NX 4)
package. After that, the coordinate system required for making the mould was
defined. Followed by this, the dimensions of the work piece were defined.
Next, the parting line separating the core and cavity was specified. Then the
number of cavities in a mould was decided and fed into the Unigraphics
package.

The number of cavities in a mould was decided based on mould

base dimensions and the capacity of the moulding machine. Now Unigraphics
package facilitates the selection of the mould base suggested by a number of
manufacturing companies. During this module of the research, mould base
design given by the company DME (Detroit Mold Engineering) was chosen.
The screen enabling this process is shown in Figure 10.3.

Once the mould base was specified, the Unigraphics package

generated both wire-frame and shaded model of the mould. As a sample, the
wire-frame model of the mould generated by the Unigraphics package is
shown in Figure 10.4.
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Figure 10.3 Screen enabling the selection of mould base

Figure 10.4 Screen displaying the wire-frame model of the mould

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After the cavities and mould base were designed, the gate for
allowing the flow of molten material was designed using Unigraphics
package. Then, using the runner menu, the runner was designed. The screen
displaying the generated gate and runner is shown in Figure 10.5.

Figure 10.5 Screen enabling the generation of runner

10.6 MANUFACTURING OF DIES

The design of gate and runner marked the end of designing the
mould. Then it was required to initiate CAM for manufacturing dies. The
coordinate system for the component was selected. Four operations were
required to complete the process. Those operations and the required tools are
shown in Table 10.1.
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Table 10.1 Operations and required tools for machining the cavity

Operation Tool

Rough Milling Bull nose_ 10

Finishing End mill_6

Finishing End mill_2

Finishing Ball mill_2

Then the tools required to carry out the operations were chosen
from the screen available in Unigraphics package. The tool path movement
was studied against the operations shown in Table 10.1 in succession. This
exercise began with rough milling operation. Then the parameters required for
the tool were specified.

Then using Insert menu, the virtual manufacturing operation was

initiated. The required and existing sizes were earmarked by the Unigraphics
package. Finally, the tool path could be virtually studied using the simulation
facility of the Unigraphics package. So far, this exercise pertaining to rough
milling operation was illustrated. This exercise was also carried out for the
other three operations mentioned in Table 10.2. The final tool path visualized
after completing the four operations are shown in Figure 10.6.
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Figure 10.6 Screen showing the visualization of final tool path

movement

10.7 NC CODES GENERATION

After visualizing tool path using simulation, the NC codes for

making the die were generated by the Unigraphics package. On invoking code
generation menu, Unigraphics package generated NC codes for machining the
die required to manufacture front plate of the ‘S’ type switch. This process
consumed three hours. These codes have to be loaded into the CNC machine
which will carry out the required machining operation. An excerpt of the NC
codes generated at this stage of this module of the research is shown in
Figure 10.7.

This completed the development of mould of a new switch at

Salzer in an agile manner. This experience indicated that the usage of the
CAM phase of TADS in a tactical manner imparts agility in the new product
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development phase of a manufacturing organization. In the absence of

CAD/CAM utilities, the gestation period of new product development is
prolonged and in some acute cases, it becomes too late to compete in the
market for the competitor is ahead of launching the new product.

%
N0010 G40 G17 G90 G70
N0020 G91 G28 Z0.0
N0030 T00 M06
N0040 G0 G90 X2.1145 Y1.9084 S0 M03
N0050 G43 Z.1181 H00
N0060 G3 X2.4256 Y1.8592 Z-.0295 I.1516 J-.0492 K.0427 F9.8
N0070 G1 Y1.9408 M08
N0080 G2 X1.6546 Y2.4233 I-.2503 J.4574
N0090 X1.5648 Y2.4228 I-.0673 J4.0218
N0100 X1.5127 Y2.3259 I-.4007 J.1531

Figure 10.7 An excerpt of the generated NC code by Unigraphics package

10.8 CONCLUSION

The world is experiencing the competition among companies in

achieving world class manufacturing status (Salaheldin and Eid 2007). Many
tools and techniques have been brought out to facilitate the achievement of
this state (Brown et al 2007; Jin-Hai et al 2003). A few of the sectors adopt
those tools and techniques to flourish in the world. One of the highly
inadequately utilized technologies for imparting agility is CAD/CAM
(Wagner et al 2001). Utilization of CAM is one of the phases of TADS model
contributed in this research work. This chapter has reported a module of this
research work in which the implementation of CAM phase of TADS in
Salzer’s traditional manufacturing environment and its utilization in imparting
agility were investigated.