CP Pistons, the foremost piston supplier for high performance engines, has doubled its productivity and improved consistency in products using CAMWorks, an intuitive solids-based CAM solution from Geometric Limited.

As a world leader in forged pistons and high performance connecting rods for motor-racing, vintage cars, motorcycle, marine and aerospace industries, CP Pistons’ catalogue offers more than 500 types of components with customization options.

The company was facing a major challenge in meeting demands for complex parts, while also ensuring timely delivery. With their previous CAM system, a time-consuming manual reprogramming process was followed for repeat orders with minor changes.

The company decided to invest in a new CAM software package that is tightly integrated into the SolidWorks platform that the company uses for design and modeling. It selected CAMWorks for its open API functionality to bridge the company’s order booking and design systems with manufacturing. In addition, the proprietary automated feature recognition and Technology Database™ allow them to save and automatically reapply manufacturing best practices for multi-axis milling and turning.

This small software investment has transformed CP Pistons’ machining capabilities. The company can now easily meet reorders and reuse data for different orders. The result is an increase in product consistency while improving productivity by more than 100%.

“CAMWorks was the only tool we found out there that could meet all our demands and their flexible approach on APIs really helped us move forward on this initiative to develop an Enterprise Business process that linked the order taking system with the design and manufacturing processes”, said Karl Ramm, Senior Technology Manager and Project Developer, CP Pistons.

CAMWorks, the first SolidWorks certified Gold CAM product, and the first CAM solution to offer knowledge-based feature recognition and associative machining capabilities, helps eliminate the drudgery of CNC programming. The latest release, CAMWorks 2009, has over 100 new features and enhancements to machine faster and more accurately. This release also has significant advances in 3-axis functionality, new features and cutting strategies for 2 to 5 axis milling, turning and wire EDM. The combination of the latest innovations in CAMWorks 2009 and SolidWorks' excellence in design, have made CAMWorks the premier CAM solution for manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, electronics and medical industries. To find out more about CAMWorks, visit www.camworks.com.

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