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CAD/CAM Software Boosts Product Development Rates

April 11, 2005
for Golf Club Manufacturer

Dynamic Precision Industry Manufacturing Co., manufactures golf clubs and prides itself on its in-house tooling and design. The Taiwanese company is one of the top suppliers of golf club heads, shafts, and grips in the world. Its products are cast in titanium, stainless steel, and aluminum.

The current market requires golf clubs to combine aesthetic, artistic designs with practical features for controlled and long-distance play. They have more complicated shapes that must be made to higher accuracy and so are more difficult to design and manufacture.

Dynamic recognized that they had to upgrade the CAD/CAM systems and use five-axis machines in order to meet their customers’ requirements.

Dynamic purchased a PowerMill CAM system from Delcam, a global supplier of advanced CAD/CAM software for manufacturing. Delcam is the largest developer of product design and manufacturing software in the U.K.

The system installed at Dynamic features a DMG five-axis machine tool and five-axis program. In addition, Dynamic introduced shop-floor machining, a practice not common in Asia.

The result was a reduction in mold manufacturing time by 35% and better mold quality. The machining system generates reliable toolpaths, and there is increased programming productivity and consistency.

The process begins with the importing of the CAD model to be machined. The AutoCAM specifies the block size required to machine the model. Then, the operator enters the material type, selects the machine tool, and starts the system. AutoCAM will automatically select and display appropriate tools, machining strategies, spindle speeds, and feeds. The operator then confirms the selections and all the toolpaths will be batched in PowerMill.

The purchase of the five-axis machine tool and machining module has reduced machining time. The new facilities have reduced the need for multiple alignments of jobs, and reduced the time and money for producing fixtures. These savings have allowed Dynamic to apply more resources to improving other aspects of production.