Paragon Medical adopts NCSIMUL Machine to drive machining simulation process

Cost savings and ease of use prompt Paragon Medical to choose SPRING Technologies' machining simulation software

To verify and optimize its machining operations, medical products supplier Paragon Medical, Inc., Pierceton, Ind., has selected NCSIMUL Machine, the CNC machine simulation solution from SPRING Technologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Paragon Medical is a tier-1 turnkey manufacturer of cases and trays, surgical instrumentation, and implantable components. A leader in its industry, Paragon established its Global Design Center to enable the company to close the loop between development and manufacturing via project management, design, research, analytical testing and prototyping.

NCSIMUL Machine, a component of SPRING Technologies' NC software offering of CAM software and services, is a comprehensive machine simulation software for simulating, verifying, optimizing and reviewing machining programs meant for CNC machines.

DRAMATICALLY SAVING SETUP TIME

Paragon NC Programmer Mark Erickson said the custom and limited-volume nature of the company's products effectively creates "a job shop environment where we're doing a lot of setups. The final decision for purchasing NCSIMUL Machine came when we saw setup time savings of around 7 to 8 hours per set up because of the documentation that NCSIMUL Machine can output. If the guys on the floor have been spending hours on a job and we can provide more information to do the setups faster, we're looking at a good return on the software investment."

Another of the software's benefits, Erickson said, is the ability to easily transfer NCSIMUL Machine simulations among different machines. Paragon employs many types of 3 to 5-axis mills to machine complex parts and asked Spring Technologies to provide a simulator for its 9 axis machining center. "We use NCSIMUL Machine to come up with simulations for our different types of machines," Erickson said, "It's proven pretty easy to create simulations for a new machine."

According to SPRING Technologies, NCSIMUL Machine offers a variety of advantages compared to competitive systems. NCSIMUL Machine generally takes about 2 days of training, attesting to the program's ease of use. Also significant, SPRING Technologies says, is the capability to demonstrate and share NCSIMUL Machine simulations. Downloading NCSIMUL Player application from the SPRING Technologies web site enables customers and collaborators who don't necessarily have licenses for the software to receive and play back NCSIMUL Machine files and employ functionalities such as measurement of surfaces and finding specific G-code lines.

Paragon's decision to purchase some seats of NCSIMUL Machine followed an intensive 90-day evaluation that included comparison of an evaluation copy of the software with that from another NC simulation provider. The extended test with the evaluation copy, Erickson said, "was a key for getting the software into Paragon."

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