A two-part series looking at leading technology in the woodworking industry
I think we can all agree that technology moves fast, perhaps as fast as my daughter is growing up. In this column I will look at technology milestones and how they have affected our industry. It’s funny how some things – such as classic cars - increase in value and are considered collector items, while others just get, well, old. Will there ever be a museum for old software? Now there’s an idea.
Not that long ago it was common to program expensive CNC machines on the shop floor. The term CNC operator was very different then. The operator needed to know how to write programs line by line. That means cutting a simple rectangle on a CNC, could easily mean more than a dozen lines of code. Of course these lines of code were written at the controller and the machine was not producing anything while that was going on. If you’re still programming like that at your controller today, something might be wrong. Today, the two areas of software development that have the greatest impact on woodworking manufacturing are CAD and CAM. Let’s start with CAD. It stands for Computer Aided Design. CAD software was intended to help draw things. The main goal was drawing geometry at first in 2D, then later in 3D. This includes the perspective ren- derings we are seeing more and more every day. CAD has nothing much to do with machining or production per say, it is used more for conception and design.
CAM is the acronym for Computer Aided Manufacturing (or Computer Aided Machining). CAM software was developed with the intent to help reduce the expertise and effort needed to take a drawing - whether hand drawn or drawn in a CAD software - and manufacture it on automated machines, i.e. CNC machines. CAM’s role was less to create and design, but more to take drawings and translate them to machine-ready files for easy processing at the machine. Reducing some of the time constraints and skilled labor requirements are only some of the benefits that CAM software achieved.
The accepted process then became, draw in CAD then assign machine instructions in CAM. We still see this process today, but less and less. Savvy programmers are honing in on niche markets that can benefit from end-to-end solutions. That means design and manufacturing using just one piece of software. I will talk more about this in the next edition.
Some early adopters of CAD and CAM software were the aerospace and automotive industries. That’s usually the way it goes. The largest industries have the most to gain from new technologies and are the only ones that can afford the latest and best. As time goes by, the technology gets more affordable and trickles down to others.
It’s the same as any other technology we now take for granted. In the beginning, only the biggest companies and organizations were able to afford computers, while the rest of us was still getting used to the idea of fax machines. Now, most households have at least one computer, perhaps more and they also have smartphones and tablet computers. That revolution took less than 15 years.
So what will woodworking manufacturing in Canada look like in 5-10 years? Simple. It will be awesome. For a glimpse at what’s around the corner just take a look at some of the large aerospace and automotive manufacturers. In the next column, I will provide some insight into what’s up and coming in the software industry. In any case, the future is less relevant if you’re not taking advantage of the current technologies available. The evolution in the marketplace is caused by success. So hop on the bus and benefit from the technology that is out there today.
