Page 31 - MetalForming April 2012

of Tampa Bay Steel is of carbon steel, the firm has carved a substantial niche supplying Type 904L stainless steel, which it ships all over the country— even taking in orders over the Internet. Applications for the high-nickel austenitic alloy, originally developed for its resistance to sulphuric acid, abound in the marine industry due to its ability to resist corrosion in warm sea water and other high-chloride environments.
During an average day, Tampa Bay Steel fills some 200 separate orders, its 13 trucks making as many as 140 stops throughout Florida and South Geor- gia. Its diverse set of customers orders parts in quantities from one to 1000 or more, so managing material flow and sheet and plate utilization is a must. That task became exponentially more difficult as the company contin- ued to add machines to its stable, to the point where engineering manager David Carpenter finally decided to seek a software solution that would allow him and his department of program- mers to program every cutting machine from one piece of software.
“I had five different programming packages on my computer to cover all of the machines we run,” says Carpen- ter. “Every time we added a new machine, we had to learn a new pro- gramming routine.”
One Ultimately Flexible Program
Early in 2011, Carpenter began to evaluate software options that would allow him and his team the ability, with one program, to nest and program every piece of cutting equipment in the shop, regardless of brand. In mid- 2011, Tampa Bay Steel installed Sig- maNest CAD/CAM nesting software from SigmaTek Systems, Cincinnati, OH—three seats just for quoting and nesting, and four fully functional seats for quoting, nesting and for posting programs to the shop floor.
In addition to enjoying the benefits of only having to learn and use one piece of software to program all of the company’s cutting machines, Carpen-
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