Acquisition Strengthens PTC's Manufacturing Strategy Through Integrated Design and Machining Solution
(Interviews, 30 May 2007 )
PTC has acquired Cambridge, England-based NC Graphics Ltd in direct response to customer demand for specialized CAM capabilities required for molds, dies, and prototypes. With its Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) technology, NC Graphics delivers software for optimizing tool making and high-speed precision machining processes. NC Graphics has more than 1,500 customers in multiple discrete manufacturing vertical markets such as aerospace, automotive, medical equipment and motorsports. With this acquisition, PTC strengthens the link between product design and manufacturing, offering its customers faster production of molds and dies. As a result, parts will be available sooner and at a higher quality level than other non-integrated solutions.
Mold and die shops serve customers using a wide variety of CAD systems to model their products. The ability to create molds and dies quickly and accurately is important to the manufacturing process and overall product development cycle and vital for their business. Additionally, the quality of an end product depends directly on the quality of the tooling. With this acquisition, PTC now offers an open solution to any toolmaker or company requiring high-speed precision machining CAM software, regardless of the source CAD data. These companies will be able to optimize their mold and die making processes to deliver more complex products faster and with less cost.
NC Graphics has revolutionized the process of producing NC machining toolpaths for molds, dies, and other high-speed precision applications from 3D CAD models. Mold and die makers need this capability to help them optimize their processes to deliver more complex products with less manufacturing lead time and at lower cost. The companies that rely on these outsourced mold and die makers are able to decrease overall product development time, better enabling their response to market demands.
"The global economy is intensely competitive, and the design and manufacturing of mold and die tools is typically on the critical path of a new product introduction cycle," said James Heppelmann, executive vice president software products and chief product officer, PTC. "This acquisition allows customers to work more effectively with their outsourced toolmaker partners by connecting customer CAD data with the toolmaker's CAM system."
PTC has always appreciated the important connection between product design and manufacturing having delivered a broad set of CAM solutions as part of the Pro/ENGINEER product family. Subsequently, PTC expanded its manufacturing strategy with its acquisition of Polyplan for manufacturing process management The acquisition of NC Graphics, best known for its technology distributed under the DEPOCAM name, further enhances PTC's ability to help customers optimize their manufacturing processes. Combining NC Graphics' mastery of high-speed machining with PTC's Pro/ENGINEER solutions for tool design provides a powerful, end-to-end solution for tool production.
"Today, mold and die design for manufacturing are often outsourced to companies that specialize in developing the fixtures that are used in production processes," said Arthur Flutter, founder and managing director of NC Graphics. "The combination of PTC and NC Graphics will enable manufacturers to effectively manage the data and enable collaboration across multiple locations and suppliers in the supply chain to deliver better quality tools resulting in a design that can be easily manufactured."
NC Graphics customers will be able to continue to use NC Graphics technology stand-alone or as an integral part of PTC's Product Development System (PDS). PTC will offer the NC Graphics technology under the new product name, Pro/TOOLMAKER. Both NC Graphics and PTC are committed to openness and support for heterogeneous environments. Moving forward, PTC plans to manage tool paths created using Pro/TOOLMAKER in Windchill, just as it manages Pro/ENGINEER and other CAD data, providing a single source of data that improves secure collaboration among designers, tool makers and manufacturers.
PTC and NC Graphics have many joint customers. One such customer is Racing Technology Norfolk, a member of the Express Composites Group and a leader in advanced composites design, engineering and rapid prototyping for the Motorsports and racing markets. "As a customer of PTC and NC Graphics solutions, we are excited about the opportunity that a best of breed integrated CAM technology will offer," said David Coates, group projects director, Racing Technology Norfolk, Ltd. "PTC's continued investment in manufacturing solutions will enable our Group to achieve business benefits such as improved time-to-market, improved quality and improved customer satisfaction."
