If you have read or heard anything about modern manufacturing, you have probably heard CAD CAM being mentioned more than once. The question is whether you know what Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) is really all about. If you scan your surroundings, you can pretty much bet that anything you look at will have been designed using CAD. The only exception would be antiques or items made prior to the 1970’s.
It was around that era that the automotive and aerospace industries started to manufacture parts using CAD systems. This was a major investment for both industries, especially since those early systems could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s a whole lot pricier than the modern CAD systems, most of which fall under $5,000. Even the high-end systems that are used to make very complex parts are still relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of things.
That essentially covers half of the whole CAD CAM set-up, leaving us having to explain a little more about CAM. These systems work off a blueprint of sorts, and for the most part are very limited in what they can do without a CAD system in place, as this is where those blueprints are born. While these two systems go hand in hand, nothing happens without the use of CNC machines, which are used to take the information delivered from the CAD CAM set-up and use drilling and cutting to make the pieces.
When we say CNC machine, we do not mean one particular type of machine. CNC milling and turning machines have been around for about a half century, and in that time have spawned all sorts of different machines. You will find laser, water jets, grinders, turret punches, and hundreds of other CNC machines that can make an incredible variety of products. The common bond among them all is that they use the CAD CAM set-up and turn those blueprint into a physical product that is incredibly precise, no matter how complex the design.
As is the case when computers are added to any industry, the amount of human error is greatly reduced. CNC machines that are used today require very little in the way of human supervision. Manufacturing costs drop as a result, as these machines can be programmed to run round the clock, whilst also limiting the amount of material waste or the need to re-do work were errors have been made. As already mentioned, the level of precision and detail that these machines can deliver is something that simply cannot be done by hand.
With CAD CAM and CNC machines, manufacturers are now at a point where the most complex of parts can be made quickly, which allows them to create new pieces that might ordinarily not have been possible just a decade or so ago. As the software and hardware continues to evolve in the coming generations, we can only imagine the type of work that CNC machines will be able to do in the future.
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