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Hello….just a little background on me….I am pretty new to the counter top business but have been CAD drafting and designing for over 14 years…..My business was custom stainless steel fabrication for the foodservice industry, so this was bit a change for me. But Ive been with this company almost a year and really my main resposibility was the photo-top / CAD drawings. My question is well I want to explain our process and if I could get some feedback on this process that would be great. It just seems to me that the way we do it could be improved and sped up a bunch….but I am new so you guys and gals please help me out. Heres the deal. There are 2 of us in the Computer room. I handle the photo-top and what we call the 1st draw (which is me taking the dxf files, get them into AutoCAD and make a drawing out of it). Then our programmer takes that drawing along with all the info and programs it for our machines, stone or solid surface.
Well as of starting Monday I started doing some programs (very green on that process but fighting thru it). As of today, I can see where some of the process steps that we use are redundant and time consuming in that once the dxf file is made, a drawing created, seems to me that the process works better and I stay more intuned to the job if I just go ahead and program it myself. That brings up other questions. Like. Is every CNC process as mumble jumble as process that I go thru? (Secam and Toolpath) I mean the way it is set up, photo-top creates a dxf, I create a dwg off that dxf, then I have to create another dxf for the CNC on both ss and stone (adding for the particular profiles on a specific layer, offsets, etc. etc.) Seems there is a faster way of combining these into one but Im just following rules and new to the business. Could anyone explain something that might work better? Thanks for you input.
Harlan Martin
Harlan,
Best place to start would probably be getting better training on your particular software. It does sound like you are doing repetitive steps. I use AutoCAD 2002 along with RouterCIM and I can import a DXF or a DWG drawing and adjust the drawing for the appropriate overhangs, radius corners, cutouts and whatever else the job calls for making sure to use the appropriate layers that determine the tool paths and off it goes to the machine to be cut. I would estimate an average job to go from a digitized file to a machine ready output file to take about 20 minutes or so. But I think having a good understanding of your software is the place to start.
Shane
You are probably right about the redundancy. But as the owner of a business and I hired you, I would love to see you learn my system so you can do it in your sleep first. Then I would really accept you coming to me and advising me that there may be a better way to approach this task.
If you come to me now, I probably wouldn’t listen even though I should.
Just giving you perspective from the other side of the fence. If it is any concellation, you are on to something. Going back and forth from one file type back to the original is a complete waste of time.
Harlan,
By the way, welcome to the Fabricator Network. Keep posting and reading. It is a great place to pick up on the tricks of the trade.
My first thought was that the redundancy was probably built in to the system. At least some of it. We intentionally have some redundancy as a double-check precaution. When we program our CNC for our stone jobs, we have it go through several different people as part of a review process. If the redundancy serves no purpose though, it is just waste. I’m sure your boss or co-worker wouldn’t mind having some questions asked of them. The thing that impresses me the most with employees is when they think about what they are doing and ask questions. It shows me that they want to understand and help improve the systerm. Ask a bunch of questions, then when you understand the thinking behind why you are doing things, start making improvement suggestions.
-Paul
Hi Andy,
Thanks for your reply. Just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. Is there anywhere on the net or elsewhere where I can find more information about this toolpath software that we use? Also SECAM software for the stone CNC….Ive done searches but really not coming up with anything…..See the company I work for just wants to cut me loose with all this and Ive taken great notes from the programmer but if I could get more info…because today for example….I was thrown in some situations that my notes did not cover (not that i dont take great notes) but there is a lot to it……and we have a SECAM book and Im getting pretty good on programming Stone…but its the SS and the Toolpath software that is kind of confusing to me…again….seems I keep going round and round with redundant situations but if there was a Toolpath software site you know of I can go to and just read a bit…would be great….
Thanks again,
Harlan
Harlan,
I don’t know of any place on the internet that provides support for the Toolpath software. I think that software was put out by AXYZ. I am not positive about that. You may want to contact them and check
Is this the software you are refering to: http://www.axyz.com/toolpath.html
They also have a phone number for questions.
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