Sandvik Coromant recently announced a partnership with Autodesk to work on the future of Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM). The first step of the collaboration will tackle one of the most widespread challenges in CAM; the complex task of specifying cutting tools to determine the most effective way to use them. Materials are lighter, harder and stronger, machines are more advanced, batch sizes are smaller and component design is increasingly complex — all of this leads to an increased need for CAM programming and skilled CAM users.
Typically, CAM users rely on manually transferring data from tooling catalogues and inputting the parameters into CAM software. This process is often laborious and can increase time-to-market expectations. Manufacturing and metal cutting are already complex processes, and they’re often made more difficult by manually managing tooling information resulting in delayed setup times and increased room for machining error.
Pairing Autodesk's CAM software solutions with Sandvik Coromant’s deep tooling knowledge and expertise helps customers reduce time and improve efficiency in the preparation phase. The first step in this new partnership will remove the time-consuming nature of data selection by providing Autodesk customers with access to the Sandvik Coromant tool data.
In addition, the company is also collaborating with Microsoft to drive forward the development and digitalization of the manufacturing industry and accelerate the internal digitalization network for Sandvik Coromant. The collaboration will seek to link up parts of the production chain to create solutions for the next generation of manufacturing.
Sandvik Coromant's CoroPlus offering is based on Microsoft Azure IoT and Dynamics 365 Field Service. Among other things, the offering connects people, machines, tools and data on a single platform to offer Sandvik Coromant's customers a better basis for decision making, and provides an overview of the various developments in the manufacturing process. This can enable savings, for example, by reducing machine downtimes.
One important aspect of Sandvik Coromant's CoroPlus offering is that data is not only gathered at machine level to adjust equipment, notify technicians about maintenance requirements and warn managers about potential problems. Data is also gathered at tool level, which means that the customer's industrial tool becomes "smart" and can be adapted and adjusted at any time for efficient use and to prevent production stoppages.
The collaboration with Microsoft adopts an integrated approach to digitizing the data, expertise and experience used on a daily basis by Sandvik Coromant to guide their customers. It will also serve as an additional tool to facilitate streamlining of production.