Malvern-based Lantek Systems Ltd (www.lanteksms.com) has introduced software innovations that aim to bring the reality of digital processing closer for sheet metal and fabrication shops.

One of the company’s systems that has been the subject of significant change is Lantek Expert, which now includes a 64-bit version that delivers advances in automatic nesting, as well as greater security by preventing the ‘execution of malicious code’.

Furthermore, calculation times have been optimised for the machining of chamfers with water-jet machines.

Lantek’s Flex 3d Tubes solution has also been revised. Here, the main update is focused on the 2-D geometry editing module, which is now more powerful and easier to use, without the need to launch an external program.

New operations for defining joints between tubes have also been added. In this way, Lantek customers can complete jobs with kits and export tube structures by defining different types of joints between parts.

Meanwhile, the latest version of Lantek Integra allows technical and commercial teams to be involved in the preparation of quotes using task-based communication.

It is now possible to develop quotes from both Lantek Integra and Lantek Manager, and to assign the complete manufacturing path to the parts — including non-cutting operations.

Moreover, when generating a sales quote, notifications can be sent to the sales manager as soon as the quote is created or modified. It is also possible to set the price of material as provided by the customer and deduct it accordingly.

Finally, the Lantek Workshop software suite has been optimised to record and validate 2-D cutting processes and operation times.

Users can now record the completion of cutting operations without needing real-time control, dividing the nesting validation process into two steps — cutting and ‘de-nest’ — in order to differentiate the actual cutting time from the time spent removing parts from the sheet.