Friday, December 22, 2006

Plate-cutting programming saves 7% materials

An optimized programming system enables easier, more effective and cost-efficient design of thermal cutting processes in industrial plate profiling and cutting - saving 7% materials.

Up to 7% less material consumption, significantly lower plate handling requirements and lower item costs - the optimized COLUMBUS programming system enables easier, more effective and cost-efficient design of thermal cutting processes in industrial plate processing and machining. At the euroblech 2006 exhibition stand of ESAB, visitors could convince themselves of the speed and ease with which the users can design their own individual cutting and marking programs with COLUMBUS. Installation of COLUMBUS on a PC running Windows (95/98, ME, NT and 2000) is a 'cinch' (easy - Ed), and the programming system can be integrated into existing EDP structures easily via PPS.

This enables, for example, accurate import and export of existing parts lists and calculation data.

User friendliness is additionally enhanced by the new graphical design of the user interface, with a clear organization and largely self-explaining symbols.

To support automated cutting processes, this programming system is open to all applications for central process control and was designed such that the customers can specifically select the software modules they actually need.

This reduces initial costs and the system can be adapted to changing requirements quickly.

COLUMBUS can be used for converting drawing data in machine-readable CAD data, for nesting and inserting cutting parameters as well as for plate management.

With the new nesting system, the cutting specialists of ESAB Cutting Systems from Karben near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, succeeded in increasing material utilization in plasma-arc, flame and laser cutting even further.

COLUMBUS is a sophisticated, flexible and intelligent tool with which the users can easily create their own NC cutting programs.