Before investing in Radan CAD/CAM software from Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division, creating manual nests took the Kansas-based (USA) sheet metal fabricator Tindle Construction Inc (TCI) several hours, which meant shopfloor staff had to move on to other tasks while the nests were generated. Now, however, a day’s worth of nests are produced in just a couple of minutes.

Engineering manager Jesse McGinnis said: “This makes a huge difference to us. We now have an employee who only needs to program for half the day, freeing him up to spend the rest of the time on engineering projects. Because of what we can do with Radan, it is no longer necessary to have anyone generating nests full-time.”

TCI is a family-owned multi-divisional company that specialises in industrial services and fabrication. Mr McGinnis says some of the aspects that separate TCI from its competitors include AWS-certified and R-stamp welds, custom engineering on architectural parts, and custom high-end finishes on copper, brass, stainless steel and carbon steel display products.

“We have a variety of machines with differing capabilities, and combining those is like playing chess. It is interesting to see what we can come up with to get the job done.”

These machines include laser and water-jet profilers, press brakes and mandrel benders, as well as CNC lathes and mills.

Mr McGinnis was hired by TCI specifically for the fabrication side of the business and was tasked with ‘hand programming’ the company’s latest laser; and while the company subsequently invested in a CNC programming solution for the laser, it found that this was significantly limited in efficiency and flexibility.

After investigating a number options for implementing a new sheetmetal solution, TCI made the switch to Radan.

Mr McGinnis said: “I felt like Radan was a better fit for us, and we now use it to program both the laser and water-jet machine. Furthermore, this system allows us to edit nests that have been generated automatically, which is something our old one didn’t offer.”