Page 41 - MetalForming January 2015

ware products AutoForm offers for the die-making and metalforming indus- tries, enables company-wide workflow standardization and a significant reduction in time needed to create high-quality CAD surfaces. Just ask Giuseppina Milani, Fontana’s die sur- faces coordinator.
“Catia has been used in our engi- neering department for more than 25 years,” he says. “Although it is certain- ly a powerful system, it unfortunately does not offer solutions for those work- ing in the design and manufacture of stamping dies and, more importantly, it does not fulfill our specific needs.”
The creation of surfaces is becoming a critical aspect in this complex market, where the competitive edge is timing. The Fontana engineering department requires a direct connection—not a manual transition—between the con- ceptual creation of surfaces carried out by engineers and the creation of sur- faces that can immediately be used for CNC machining.
“We had a fast and efficient simula- tion method based on surfaces created with AutoForm-DieDesignerplus,” notes Fontana R&D engineer Riccardo Brivio. “These surfaces were not easy to handle within CAD. The procedure for creating CAD-quality surfaces for use in CNC machining was slow, complex and time consuming.”
Enter AutoForm-ProcessDesigner- forCatia, the strategic missing link that enables Fontana engineers to create a die layout, including not only the draw- ing but also all secondary operations, without having to leave the Catia envi- ronment.
From Theory to Practice
To assess the operating potential and adaptability of its new software, Fontana engineers carried out thor- ough tests on a designated project of one production line. At the same time, two additional projects were carried out implementing the strategies cur- rently in use.
“Each of the three projects,” says Cavenago, “went through the same work phases. In the end we noticed
that when applying the features of Aut- oForm-ProcessDesignerforCatia, the designated project clearly showed rel- evant time savings.”
One benefit not to be underesti- mated: When compared with a Catia license, this software can be used dur- ing the running session by adding the AutoForm-ProcessDesignerforCatia license, every time it is required. At the same time, the software allows for a
high quality level of data update. “Our objective,” continues Cavena- go, “is to use AutoForm-ProcessDe- signerforCatia with any of our customers’ files. We hope to create an even closer connection between AutoForm- DieDesignerplus and AutoForm- ProcessDesignerforCatia in order to reproduce the parameters already defined during simulation on surfaces
or draw beads.”

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