Antenna Manufacturer Combines 5-Axis MTM
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Antenna Manufacturer Combines 5-Axis MTM with CAD/CAM Software to Reduce Labor By 75% Parts that took R.A. Miller Industries 25 minutes of machining with two lathe and three mill operations, now only took 6 minutes from bar stock to completion. Five parts on this Hummer whip antenna, (two inside the base), are machined on an Okuma MacTurn 250 multi-axis, multi-task machine, with B-axis (tilting live tooling), and programmed with GibbsCAM 5-axis and MTM software. R.A. Miller Industries (RAMI), of Grand Haven, Michigan, is a major antenna manufacturer housing 170 employees in over 100,000 square feet of of�ice and production space. RAMI prides itself on building antennas "from the ground up," doing all the electrical and mechanical engineering, parts production, degreasing, plating, painting and assembly for their military, automotive (heavy truck), general aviation and marine antennas. For automotive antenna production, RAMI contracts for parts because the part volume requires 6-spindle and 8-spindle machines, for which RAMI lacks �loor space. In late 2009, RAMI was challenged because two key components of a military antenna required for the ful�illment of a long-term military contract of 3,000 units per month -- 6,000 to 10,000 parts a month -were too complex for RAMI's machine tools, and too dif�icult for CNC programmers to program manually. The parts had to be contracted to a job shop. Soon, RAMI found that part deliveries were taking too long, that parts had become expensive, that its shop did not have full control of quality and delivery, and that deliveries were not synchronizing with assembly requirements. The solution would be to acquire a new machine tool capable of multi-task and 5-axis machining, an MTM that combined milling and turning. Programming the machine tool would require a CAD system to develop accurate 3D part models, and CAM software capable of directly using the CAD models to quickly program complex parts for machining on the multi-axis MTM. In the late spring of 2010, the RAMI machine shop purchased an Okuma MacTurn 250, a multi-task turning center, and contacted their GibbsCAM reseller, who assured them that GibbsCAM could program parts for machining on any MTM or multi-axis milling or turning center, regardless of complexity, that it had a very short learning curve, and that its interface is very easy to understand and navigate for any machinist or CNC programmer. For modeling machinable parts, Autodesk Inventor was recommended, because GibbsCAM's ACIS-SAT translator, assisted by Autodesk Inventor View, would read Autodesk Inventor �iles �lawlessly. In addition the GibbsCAM Autodesk Inventor Add-in allows users to run GibbsCAM within Inventor, should an engineer or CNC programmer use both applications. In June 2010, RAMI Engineering acquired Autodesk Inventor and, in August, after Engineering had become acquainted with Inventor, the RAMI machine shop acquired GibbsCAM. A RAMI engineer would produce part models for the shop when a prototype o

freeing 75% of the required labor to make more parts on other machines. Furthermore, the programmer-machinists now save hours of programming time because they use Inventor models as input to GibbsCAM. GibbsCAM allows users to take cross sections of the Inventor part models anywhere on the part, and to use them to program CNCs Image of Autodesk Inventor model of upper spring holder coming into GibbsCAM, showing the screen that allows users to select part model attributes, such as features and feature colors, to be imported and preserved for subsequent use with GibbsCAM automation functions....