What exactly is integrated CADCAM?
Today, the term integrated CADCAM usually means that the same CAD software system that is used to design the part, is also the system used to create the CNC cutterpaths for the part.
Most popular CAM systems include a varying amount of CAD functions, and many are quite strong in their design capabilities. However, these CAM software products are usually not used in the original design of the part(s), assemblies, bill of materials, etc. This is quite often done by a dedicated design system.
Dedicated CAD systems:
There are CAD design products in the marketplace which have no CAM functionality whatsoever, at least as provided by the main developers of the CAD system. SolidWorks by Dassault is one such product. SolidWorks relies on partners, of which Sescoi is a CAM solution partner with WorkNC, to provide functionality for a complete solution.
Although many CAD design systems may have an integrated CAM module, one has to ask, is it the right choice? Often, companies choose a third party for their CAM needs, even though they may use a mainstream CAD design product.
Research:
There are many pros and cons of utilizing a third party specialized CAM system over a completely integrated solution. Feel free to leave your thoughts on the pros and cons of one over the other in the comments section, however, following is some research from an exhaustive survey conducted by Cyon Research.
The question asked and topic is,
Which criteria are most important to your firm when choosing CAD/CAE software for design and engineering?
Please examine the picture below, in the last line of the slide the topic is Integration with CAM. Each colored circle represents a different segment of the company. The blue circle represents CEO/CIO or CTO, the yellow circle represents other EVP or VP’s and the magenta circle represents the engineers. The farther to the left the circle is, the more important that item is to that management level of the corporation.
Integration to CAM not as Important to Engineers
From the graph, we can see that the Blue Circle is to the left, meaning that the CEO/CIO/CTO believe integration of CAD and CAM are important, however, the actual engineers, and those closer to the engineers (VP’s and Engineering VP’s) do not rate it nearly as high of importance. This is often typical of many companies, with a heavy top down management style.
Unfortunately this is not very surprising. Engineers often want the best tools available to them, even if from different brands, whereas others like the simplicity of dealing with one source. Sometimes the integrated CADCAM solution is the best solution, but what about when it is not? If a case can be made and proven that a non-integrated approach is actually more productive, will the CEO still want an integrated solution?
Does the CAM need to be integrated with the CAD system? What do you see as the pros and cons? Leave some comments and we will explore this topic further in a future blog.
