×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Sheet metal consumption

Sheet metal consumption

Sheet metal consumption

(OP)
I work for an OEM who uses a lot of sheet steel (CRS, CRPO, and Al) in thier products. We currently calculate the material used in our parts based on how many parts we can grid on a sheet.

We are making some changes in our processes including eliminating batch-style manufacturing as well as introducing a 2D laser for cutting sheet metal.

I want to start using free form nesting to cut only the day's requirements, but our "system" won't understand how to consume the raw material.

Any ideas how we can accomplish both efective material usage and keep track of inventory?

jb

RE: Sheet metal consumption

The (ancient) software for a former employer's (more ancient) CNC plasma cutter was capable of keeping records by individual sheet, so you could nest a new group of parts on the remainder of yesterday's or last week's sheet.

At least that's what the book and the help file said it could do.  

Keeping track of partial sheets was just too much of a pain to deal with, and that 'system' didn't integrate with anything else.  So we just estimated material usage by gross area of a simplified polygon.  I.e., insofar as the material control system was concerned, every part was its circumscribed rectangle, plus a little.




 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources