On track for production solutions

In a Q&A session, Martin Bailey, JETCAM International’s general manager explains how companies can reduce reliance on paper, maintain social distancing on the shopfloor and achieve greater accuracy when entering production information.

JETCAM’s CrossTrack and Expert software help resolve the complex issue of managing orders, materials, nests, parts/plies and kits. Traceability within aerospace manufacturing is critical. JETCAM delivers this by giving customers complete visibility from the initial material delivery, nesting, cutting, layup and other stages through to the finished part.

Q) In general, what are the latest trends and demands driving aerospace customer requirement for your software solutions and why?

Although nesting efficiency is something that is very important to our customers, we’re being asked more frequently about integration with automation systems, such as for delivery of material to the cutter from the freezer or for unloading plies from the CNC cutter. The reason for this is that the benefits of truly dynamic nesting are often significantly offset by the additional time that it takes to unload the table and kit the plies for layup. Many companies still use static nests per kit, which are very inefficient when compared to a dynamic nest containing multiple kits, so when trying to move to dynamic nests they encounter problems and delays on the shopfloor.

Q) Are you still surprised to see paper job cards, paper management of contracts and work schedules being used in customer facilities?

The ‘problem’ with paper and Excel spreadsheets are that they work and are very simple to implement. In the absence of an available solution shopfloor staff will take the least line of resistance and create their own systems to solve isolated problems within production. The result is an array of standalone systems, often stored inside peoples’ heads with no real traceability, extremely time-consuming and prone to error.

Q) What specific areas in your suite of modules are proving most popular with your aerospace customers?

We’ve seen a take-up of more customers using our mobile apps. Our ‘Material Transfer Station’ allows staff to book either raw material or kits in or out of a given location using a low-cost tablet or phone. This reduces the need for travel or sharing of a PC on the shopfloor, thus aiding social distancing and in some cases allows some PCs to be removed from the shopfloor and stores altogether (freeing up additional space).

Q) What are the most important things an engineer needs to know when specifying your products to best meet their tailored requirements?

Integration into existing systems. Almost without exception, our customers will have an existing ERP system, but these are often geared around financials, not the needs of the shopfloor. One example is a major ERP system that manages material stock with a ‘total batch quantity’. For example, if they receive 10 x 100m rolls then they book in batch number XYZ with a length of 1,000m – this means that they cannot track the location and life of individual stock items (let alone kits of plies) using the ERP system as it has no concept of singular items – only the batch. CrossTrack was designed to meet the requirements of the shopfloor whilst also seamlessly integrating with ERP. In this scenario staff would book stock in to CrossTrack, and it would then update the ERP with the batch number and total batch length, with any further usage decrementing the overall batch within ERP but with full traceability within CrossTrack.

Q) Is one of the major obstacles helping your customers overcome their 'comfort blanket' attachment to their legacy systems?

In the early days of JETCAM, I’d agree. However, about three years ago we launched our University – an online video tutorial library with hundreds of short videos, broken down into product-related courses. These videos have now been watched nearly 34,000 times. Customers can either watch the course in a linear fashion or search for a video on a specific feature or task, which is ideal for those ‘how do I’ moments. They can also request new videos if an area isn’t covered, and these are added within 5-7 days. This is free to access for all customers, and gives prospects the comfort that they can access something more visual that is better than a dry manual whenever they need it.

Q) Do you feel satisfied that your customers leverage the full benefits of JETCAM’s capabilities?

With JETCAM Expert nesting, our composite users all tend to use it the same way – fully automatically. One could argue that they’re not benefiting from some of the interactive features, but that’s the benefit of automation! They use CrossTrack to remotely control JETCAM, simply sending it lists of DXFs to import, or either components or assemblies (templates of kits) to nest. This information can also be pulled dynamically from CAD systems or from ERP systems. CrossTrack now extends to other areas of a facility, such as management of layup tools. Generally, we have two types of customers – those that use CrossTrack purely to generate nests for the cutter and those that are using the full material location, life and consumption tracking along with the nesting, with the majority using the full system. Those that are only using CrossTrack for nesting generally are migrating towards full usage though. The more of the software they use, the less they ‘use’ on a daily basis in terms of interaction, as they are taking advantage of more automation.

Q) In terms of positive customer feedback, do you have any success stories you can relate without breaking any NDAs?

The first story concerns Systima, which focuses on our entry level CrossTrack product MTL, and which doesn’t integrate with nesting but does provide full traceability of raw material and kits. The software paid for itself within two months. The second is Quickstep, who saw JETCAM at an event last January and engaged with us shortly afterwards. The pandemic hit during our demo phase, and we received an order in May, however due to Covid-19 we could not go on-site. We performed the entire installation and training remotely, across multiple time zones, and were able to produce our first test nest within a couple of hours of going online with them the first time due to internal preparations. This was a world ‘first’ for us with a CrossTrack installation.

Q) What do you feel are the most important assets of a company?

Ultimately, people are what make a company, and with the implementation of any such system they can make or break it. Many staff, especially on the shopfloor can see any new technology either as ‘big brother’ or a means to ultimately replace them, but we find that once they start using our system, they quickly see the benefits. The system frees up their time, allowing them to spend it more proactively, rather than reacting to problems. A defined strategy is also important, but we already have a well-proven methodology for implementation, as demonstrated with the Quickstep Technologies installation. It gives customers confidence when we can give them essentially a blueprint for implementation that they can see will work for them.

Q) What differentiates your company from the competition - why should a customer use your products over your nearest rival?

The biggest concern for customers is trying to slot any new system into their existing structure. Once people engage with us, they can see that our software is developed specifically to solve their problems. It’s in use by both small and large companies alike - Capricorn Composites and Connova are two examples of subcontract manufacturers, and CrossTrack is in use by multinationals such as Bombardier Aerospace, Bell Helicopter, Hexcel, Sikorsky Lockheed Martin, GE Aviation and Terma Aerostructures - among others. We regard our standard system approach and its ability to seamlessly integrate with other systems as a real strength.

www.jetcam.com