The keys to unlocking profits with lasers, plasma, gas, waterjet and combo machines can be found in P.E.P.’s automation. As with any lock, the user must have the right key to gain access. P.E.P.’s 46 years of writing CAD/CAM software with seamless database technology, amazing intelligence and intuitive menus allow sales, engineering and programming departments to do 5 times the amount of work they would otherwise be able to do with any other CAD/CAM product.
The proof. The parts in the picture below are three inches thick and nested at .375″ spacing. The nest is so tight it looks like a laser nest. The company that cut this nest with 8 oxy torches used their existing equipment and personnel, and saved 4,000.00 USD / plate by using P.E.P.’s automated nesting and CPT technology to cut the nest. Please take a close look at the picture to see if you can spot how P.E.P. has dissipated the heat.
Can you pick the nest with the best yield from nest A and B? If your software generated the wrong nest and your programmer did not catch it then your company lost 20% in material (11 parts), and possibly 30% in machine productivity. Can anyone pick the best material yield by merely looking at the nest, the answer is NO, you need to count the parts. Automatically nesting the parts multiple ways and saving the best result is what great software does automatically.
Interlocking the parts as shown below right yields 7 more parts per sheet (24.13% better material yield). Furthermore, by sequencing the nest and strategically assigning the lead-ins 200 head raises were eliminated. Could your programmer have manually created the same nest, rotating and interlocking the parts. It’s very unlikely. Automatic nesting results like the results in the lower left are typical of most automatic nesting engines, and consequently jobs like this go to the shop every day when the programmer does not have the TIME to re-nest the parts manually.
Brand-X Automatic Results
Brand-X Automatic Nesting Results
QUESTIONS: Can you pick the nest with the best yield from nest A and B?
ANSWER: B has 11 more parts than A, that is a 20% increase in material yield.
COMMENT: Can a skilled programmer pick the best material yield by merely looking at the nest, NO.
QUESTIONS: Does a programmer have the time to renest, checking every angle to get the best rotation?
ANSWER: NO. Failing to find the interlocking angle for BOTH the horizontal and the vertical interlock will cost the company up to 24.13% in material.
COMMENT: It’s not enough to check every angle, the automatic nesting engine must check 360 degrees of rotation comparing a part interlocked with itself at all rotations.
P.E.P. Technology’s Fully Automatic Mode
PEP’s Automatic Nesting Results
The PEP automatic nesting engine saved 8% in material across 4 plates, is there more to the ROI?
YES…P.E.P. creates great AUTOMATIC results! Most automatic nesting product requires a skilled programmer with UNLIMITED TIME to re-nest the automatic results a 2nd and 3rd time, and then manually interact with the automatic results essentially editing 90% of the nests your shop cuts.
An automatic nesting product like P.E.P. that can nest automatically as effectively as a skilled programmer given UNLIMITED TIME to edit a nest will typically save 120,000.00 USD per laser per year in material and machine productivity. The savings increase when the skilled programmer accepts the automatic results and does not renest the parts. That’s the documented number P.E.P. customers have reported back after switching to P.E.P. and analyzing the savings.
The bar graph on the right breaks down the ROI comparing the skilled programmer to PEP’s automation. This document discusses Material Yield and Machine Productivity comparison in the grid. The P.E.P. speed and automation typically allows 1 programmer to do the work of 5 SKILLED PROGRAMMERS.
The interlocked COLUMNS of parts in the picture below were nested by P.E.P. automatically! COLUMN NESTING is a concept and a technique that P.E.P. has been perfecting since 1986, this concept is proven to produce better material yield and better machine productivity, and it is fully automatic.
To deviate from the column nesting concept “even once” within any area of the nest makes it impossible to control HEAT. When heat is not controlled on every plate, then ALL of the parts on all of the plates must be cut at a greater distance (spacing)….or….cut with the tech table speed and power reduced.
The P.E.P. automatic nesting engine AUTOMATICALLY creates perfect nests on the 1st try. There is no editing and or re-nesting required, as such, sales, engineering and programming all get the same results.
Controlling heat allows parts to be spaced closer to improve material yield.
Heat control also improves cut quality and allows the machine to cut faster.
When heat is not dissipated into the uncut material the parts must be nested further apart to get acceptable quality, and the cutting speed must be reduced.
P.E.P’s automatic nesting engine AUTOMATICALLY nests parts in columns 100% of the time as seen on the right, thereby setting up the secondary sequencing process and the assigning of lead-in’s to dissipate heat.
P.E.P.’s sequencing logic will create a perfect cut sequence controlling heat. The software takes everything into consideration to generate the cut sequence such as controlling heat, least number of head raises, the shortest rapid path, and the smallest post processed code….all simultaneously!
The nest below is an example of how the Brand X automatic nesting engine failed to setup the sequencing. The lack of organization within the nest results in parts being sequenced incorrectly and heat being trapped in the parts. Below right is the P.E.P. nest, the parts were nested in columns which allowed the sequencing logic to automatically sequence the parts snaking up and down left to right.
The Brand X nest to the right is another example of a nest that was not nested and or sequenced properly.
The RED arrows show locations where the heat is trapped.
This is an example of what not to do.
P.E.P. Technology lead-in logic will automatically find the best location on the part geometry to assign the lead-in, strategically locating the correct lead-in type to control heat, stay away from press brake edges while at the same time, eliminating head raises. Line lead-ins are assigned to geometry intersections; and line-arc lead-in are assigned to lines and arcs.
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P.E.P. supports the conversion of all the following 2D and 3D formats:
It is not necessary to remove title blocks, dimensions, notations, cross hairs, alternate views ( top, side, isometric, etc.), the P.E.P. software will analyze the CAD data and find the part, then fix all the geometry errors automatically.
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The P.E.P. software finds the part and creates a perfect cutter path by fixing ellipses, splines, gaps, duplicates, blends, etc. automatically. When short lines are detected the software converts the lines to arcs and circles automatically.
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The part in the picture to the right was scaled, the part geometry measured and compared to the dimensions, then compared to the tolerances, dimensions in tolerance are outlined in blue, and the part saved as a perfect cutter path in 2 seconds along with the documentation showing every task performed by the software. The P.E.P. CAD converter will convert both single part and multiple part files to a finished cutter path in one step in seconds.
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P.E.P. Technology’s common cutting technology includes rotation to maximize common cutting, automatic mirroring, safety cuts, etc.. The nest below was created fully automatically.
All of the automation above used together allows your laser operators to increase the cutting feed rate back to what the limits of the machine and material are. P.E.P. Technology customers gain a measured 15-20% more throughput in laser and flame cutting operations.
The recent buzz about “tru-hole” plasma technology is old news to PEP customers. Because PEP customers can accurately cut holes smaller than material thickness on plasma tables, they avoid secondary drilling operations. The P.E.P. lead-ins and lead-outs allow parts to be plasma cut without gouging, or having to deliberately program material left at the lead-in, with subsequent grinding and clean-up work.
P.E.P. Technology has been a leader in bi-directional ERP and MRP integration using SQL, ODBC, and text files for 15 years. The P.E.P. WIP software has been working with cloud based products such as LaserQuote and Plex for over two years. By bringing the work into P.E.P. to schedule, enormous savings in programming time and material yield are achieved. PEP tracks and reports back what has been cut, what is scheduled to be cut, and what needs to be scheduled. Fewer remnants, better reaction to “hot jobs” and accurate tracking of cut part quantities are the result. Manufacturers, Job shops, Steel service centers, every business that runs thermal or WJ cutting or punching can increase their profits and throughput with the automation in PEP. Emails [email protected] for more information
Nest with the Best
