Programing CNC Machines Has Never Been So Easy

I have spent most of my life designing products. I like designing products, and I thoroughly enjoy every aspect of the design process. Obviously my job required me to spend a fair amount of time in the machine shop looking at how these products are made. A good engineer needs to understand the manufacturing process. Despite the fact that I was in the shop almost every day for close to 30 years I had never taken the time necessary to find out how the CNC machines were programmed.

To me the processes necessary to program these machines seemed lengthy, involved, and complicated so I was happy that someone else had the responsibility of doing it. After all, how efficient would I be as an engineer if I had to spend hours every day programming machines. Sounds like a valid argument doesn't it. Too bad it isn't! It was really nothing more than an excuse to get out of something that I thought would be difficult and boring.

Programming doesn't have to be difficult, nor is it boring. Sure there are things you need to know, but this information isn't all that hard to come by and knowing it can be a nice addition to your knowledge base. But what about the amount of time necessary to program a machine to make a part for you. Doesn't programming take a lot of time?

To answer this last question let me tell you about a program called RMP that a friend of mine just created. RPM is incredible, it is designed to supercharge the Strategy Manager feature embedded in EdgeCam. People using this program have the ability of automatically programming a CNC machine with just 1 mouse click. You heard me right, 1 mouse click. That means that once you finish a model you can launch EdgeCam and have a finished program in less than 1 minute. I know it is hard to believe but its true.

Imagine what this means for your company. If your programmer gets sick, no problem the engineer can program those parts. You need to find out how long a part will take to machine and your programmer is too busy to make a program for you. No problem, launch EdgeCam and RPM and a few minutes later you have the answer. Your company gets more work done. Your skills become more valuable to the company because you suddenly have become more versatile. Your job becomes more interesting because you know more about the manufacturing process.

Please keep in mind that not every part can be programmed in one minute, and there is a fair amount of set up required to get RPM properly configured, but programs like this are the wave of the future and you can benefit from them today. If your company has CNC equipment you need to look into this today.

For more information please visit www.roneysoftware.com or write to me at ed@roneysoftware.com