Numachine believes that the secret to lower costs, better quality and more reliable production is ensuring that all component are designed to be CNC machine friendly.
Design for Machining is a Numachine service that allows any component, casting or extrusion to be optimised for lower costs by avoiding complications, complexities and any number of other nuances that make machining unnecessarily challenging. Design for Machining will reduce the cost of any component.
We believe that we can help any client design any component, or casting, so that it is easier and more cost effective to machine. In order to provide the optimum machining solutions, you need to be at the cutting edge of a constantly evolving science, but equally, you need the practical experience of what is really possible. Our Design for Machining approach blends the clients’ knowledge and wishes seamlessly with highly affordable and high quality techniques and solutions.
Within the Numachine group, we have product designers, mechanical engineers, 3D stress simulation software along with access to all major design packages to prioritise innovative engineering. True value engineering.
As part of our standard services, we offer a rapid product design analysis where we identify what we consider to be potential improvements and cost reductions in the machining of any component or casting. This is a free, 24 hour turnaround service offered so that we can complement the evolving nature of product design without hampering the creative process.
More extensive Design for Machining analyses, that utilises the unique mindset of our entire team to ensure proper cross functional fertilisation, is undertaken at the requet of clients which may involve outside experts where we feel that external specialisations are required. The objective is always the same, finding a better way.
Digital Twin stress simulations are primarily used when we machine castings. It allows the prediction of stresses being created in components through the machining, heat treatment and casting processes. We can upload this stress data directly to the FE meshes of the OEM, enabling them to design higher quality components with tighter tolerances.
The creation of digital simulations can quickly determine the stresses caused by material subtraction through CNC machining, facilitating remedial design changes well before any costs and delays are incurred. This is a major advance in CNC technology as it allows design boundaries to be pushed forward.
2021 saw Numachine purchase a Zenith 3 Optical laser scanner CMM, which offers the combination of probes, lasers and cameras to produce perfect component digitisation. This is a very useful feature for replicating old components or replacing the unattainable.
Combined with our in-house product design team, and our complete suite of design packages, reverse engineering enables us to efficiently deconstruct the mechanics of a database nad application structure so as to remove any design artifices and errors in the original model. It is a great method of better understand a component’s design.
Numachine operates from its HQ in Hereford and an operational centre in Coventry.