A collaborative partnership has been formed between cutting tool technologies specialist Seco Tools and leading independent CNC simulation and optimisation software provider
CGTech. For a number of years,
Seco Tools has been hosting its ‘Inspiration Through Innovation’ (ITI) event at its Innovation Hub in Alcester.
David Magnall, Innovation Partnership Manager (pictured), said: “The ITI event started out as a traditional Open House and we would invite other businesses, that we called partners, to exhibit at the event so visitors could glean as much information as possible from their attendance.
At the time there was no true collaboration. However, we started to recognise that customers wanted more. As engineering departments have been increasingly whittled down, large businesses expect their suppliers to provide technical support.
“As a tooling supplier we can usually make an incremental change, but if we interact with other companies that are part of that manufacturing process, we can deliver improvements as a collective that are more of a holistic solution.
“For our event we started to engage partners to focus on actual customers issues and components, demonstrating what we and our partners believe to be best practice manufacturing solutions. From there the idea grew and we thought we do this once a year why can’t we do this every day?
“CGTech in partnership with Seco Tools can provide turn-key solutions for businesses looking for high efficiency gains. Customers are looking to take at least 40% and up to 60% or more out of the manufacturing process, in terms of cycle times and therefore cost, and we need partners to achieve this.
“Seco Tools has used Vericut CNC verification and optimisation software for many years, not just in the UK, but globally. At our production sites, anything we are programming could not run without first being proven in Vericut.”
Summing up the collaborative partnership, Mr Magnall said: “We have a great team at Seco, and our business model is always to try to provide a ‘one stop shop’. However, we only have a finite resource, but partnering helps us achieve the customers’ goals.
“The support that we get from the CGTech team is second to none; they understand the collaborative approach as a pro-active way of working and addressing the issues faced by industry.”