Digital Manufacturing

Wade Anderson:

Hey, manufacturing world. Welcome to another episode of Shop Matters, sponsored by Okuma America. This podcast is created to talk about all things manufacturing related. Today, joining me in the studio I've got an old friend of mine, Mr. Nick Spurrett.

Nick Spurrett:

Good afternoon, good morning and welcome. Thanks very much, Wade, and welcome to the podcast listeners.

Wade Anderson:

Nick, I appreciate you joining us. So let's start, tell us a little bit about Nick Spurrett?

Nick Spurrett:

Okay, well, Wade, thanks very much. A little about Nick Spurrett. Well, clearly this podcast is being recorded in North Carolina, in Charlotte, North Carolina but you can probably tell from the accent that that's not originally my home.

Wade Anderson:

You've got the deep South accent.

Nick Spurrett:

That's for sure. So originally a Brit, moved to the U.S. About six years ago, and today I work for a company called CAMBRIO. It's a brand new organization, brand new company started at the beginning of the year. CAMBRIO was the purchases of both GibbsCAM and Cimatron at the beginning of the year from 3D Systems. And those two companies, those two products, joined together with SigmaNEST. So those are the three solutions, that to date sit under the CAMBRIO umbrella.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. So I'm familiar with GibbsCAM. I think probably most of the people who would be listening are familiar with GibbsCAM. Tell me a little more about the other two.

Nick Spurrett:

So SigmaNEST is a sheet metal solution.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

So it's very, very strong globally. Very, very strong in North America, got their own direct team based out of Cincinnati, is their main office. So predominantly sheet metal space, that's the product. As for Cimatron, it's a mold and die design platform.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

Originally Israeli, originally wrote in Israel. Very, very strong globally. It's fantastic reputation, many, many, many thousands of customers on support. Very, very well registered, well looked-after. Products very, very well known throughout the world.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. So you would use Cimatron to actually design the solid models and things for the mold and die industry.

Nick Spurrett:

Yeah.

Wade Anderson:

And then translate that over to the GibbsCAM for the G and M code, or-

Nick Spurrett:

No, Cimatron is a full mold and die CAD/CAM solution.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. Start to finish?

Nick Spurrett:

So it's fully integrated.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

So it's in that specific mold and die progression environment space where you can do the full design inside Cimatron, and the full manufacturing, or you can just do the manufacturing side.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

So the way that I'd split the products, Wade, is we have a sheet metal solution which is SigmaNEST. We have GibbsCAM, which is production machining.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

So your general production machining, small molds, but your one-offs or your batch runs, mill-turn, Swiss, standard G-code machine tools production. And then you have the higher-end mold and die platform, which is your bigger molds, your bigger designs, your progresses, that environment is your Cimatron space. So the three are very, very complementary to each other. So there's very little overlap. If you look at manufacturing technologies today, most companies are either in the sheet metal space, they're either in the production space, or they're in the mold and die space. There are crossovers, of course there are. But predominantly those three spaces do typically live apart. Yes, will you have a mold and die company that has a mill-turn? Yes. Will you have a mill-turn company predominantly that wants to make a one-off mold? Yes. And we have the technologies to do that today. But predominantly, you're either into big mold and die, or mold and die, or you're into sheet metal, or you're into production machining.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. Very interesting. I always find it, I feel like every CAD/CAM company, they've got strong suits. They've got their sweet spots where they really play good in, but when you talk to them, "No we do it all," you know, "We cover A to Z." But, in reality you kind of know once you're working with them, company A's really strong in this segment of the market, company B's really strong in a different segment, so.

Nick Spurrett:

Well, I don't know whether this translates, but I say my dad always used to tell me many, many years ago, you can be a jack of all trades, but you'll never be master of them.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And so what we're trying to do within CAMBRIO, we're trying to build platforms. We're trying to build technologies that's specifically targeted for a manufacturing audience. You know, Okuma knows very, very well, your general Ma and Pa shop isn't into big industrial molds. They typically aren't because of the cost of investment for the machine tools, the materials, the technology that sits behind manufacturing that specific component, typically isn't your small to medium enterprise. Will they take on molds? Yeah, I mean if you look at a mold that's 18 inches or smaller. Yeah, absolutely. GibbsCAM is absolutely perfect in that space. But would I want to make a 10 ton mold in GibbsCAM? No, I wouldn't. I'd literally walk them through to Cimatron and say, buy this solution.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

Because it's without a doubt, a better technology. And so what we're trying to do is we've got a VP, a vice president of SigmaNEST. We've got a vice president of Cimatron and I'm the vice president of GibbsCAM. My background is production machining. That's my background, I was with another production machining product for 21 years. So I know this technology, I know what its strengths are. And one of the real amazing strengths is the number of GibbsCAM customers on support, globally. We have a huge number of, we have something in the region of 8,000 supported customers globally.

Wade Anderson:

Wow.

Nick Spurrett:

And we have a dedicated support team. We have a de- sorry.

Wade Anderson:

No, I was just going to say, let's talk a little bit about the support infrastructure. What does the service and support look like for the GibbsCAM product? And we've got customers out there that either are using it lightly, or don't use it and want to learn more about it. How do they go about that?

Nick Spurrett:

So we try to do podcasts, we try to do webinars. There was a webinar yesterday, that was available on one of the platforms through Teamcenter that we advertise to learn about the latest technology, or just advanced surface machining technology, which was yesterday's. That's readily available. People can download that, people can get the link from the website, which is obviously www.gibbscam.com. So there's that technology. We have our own support team. However, GibbsCAM predominantly, predominantly 75 percent is sold to a reseller channel. And we love resellers, they're absolutely fantastic to us and they have their own support team. But they know that we are right, front and center backing them with any issues that they potentially have. And what I mean by potentially have, if they can't answer the customer, the customer can come to us. I mean, it's not like, well you're an indirect customer, you've got to stay away.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

It's like, we're all part of a family. We're part of a team, come to us. And if you're struggling with understanding the answer to this question, because let's be completely honest, there's no software in this world that's bug free, or enhancement request free.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

Let's just be completely honest. And if it's an enhancement request, it gets logged through to development. And we've got a significant development team that analyzes this. The QA team will analyze it, and if it holds water, as they say. Because there's really three environments of enhancement requests within all software technologies and they are end-user specific. This one customer wants the product to do this.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And the chances are that, that actually making the table of being done is slim. There is another opportunity, which is localization requirements. Not just language specific, but maybe they have a machining technology that they are used to here in the U.S., Or in Germany, or in Japan. And if you look elsewhere within the world, the reality is, is that technology is not really used. But then we also have global. Then there's something that's just so obvious. Why didn't we think of it? And that's probably got much better chance of hitting the enhancement list.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Nick Spurrett:

Because everybody's under pressure in development, the developers, and in GibbsCAM they do a fantastic job. They're run by an amazing team. And I've only been with the business since the beginning of the year, but I've been so impressed with the development team. That environment that's been created in Moorpark in California, because that's predominantly where they're all based, is absolutely phenomenal. And what they managed to develop is pretty outstanding. But it's a product that's been around many, many years.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And of course, when you've got that legacy and that knowledge within the development space, these guys just get going and they're like, "Okay, what's next?" And it's like we're trying to roadmap it at the minute. We've just released 14 internationally. We're working on the plan for 15. Some of the developers are already way down the road of 15, because obviously you have to start development, the cycle starts nice and early.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Nick Spurrett:

But yeah, it's really interesting.

Wade Anderson:

Very cool. So, what does the future look like? Where do you see the GibbsCAM product going, or the CAMBRIO product? And as a whole, where do you see that moving as we look out, three, five years down the road?

Nick Spurrett:

Well I think ultimately CAMBRIO is owned by a private equity company, which is Battery Ventures. I worked for Battery Ventures 10 years ago.

Wade Anderson:

Oh, no kidding? And kind of, come back around.

Nick Spurrett:

And two of the board members that sit on the board of CAMBRIO, are CAD/CAM experts. But one is significantly known in the CAD/CAM industry. And one runs the Battery Ventures organization that I worked for 10 years ago. And I worked for him, for four or five years. And then I worked for the other guy for the last six.

Nick Spurrett:

And so, with Battery Ventures, they are manufacturing experts. In the division that we're within, Battery's obviously, a pretty sizable company, but the division that we're in, they're CAD/CAM experts. They really do know what they're doing. And that was one of the reasons, so after 21 years I decided that I needed a new challenge. But what's the future? Well, for me, the future is about complementary solutions. I don't want to buy another CAM product. I don't want to buy another production software company.

Nick Spurrett:

But there are technologies out there that are very complementary within the sheet metal, within the production machining, within the mold and die space. They're very complementary to one, or all three of those solutions. So do I see us expanding our portfolio? I'm sure the Battery team are already working on this. And I'm sure if the right product comes along at the right price, that will be added to the portfolio.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Nick Spurrett:

But looking at what we've got today, things that we have to do quickly is like licensing. We have to have a common license between all three platforms, because then we can have a licensing team. And it doesn't matter what product you are, what product that you have. If you're a SigmaNEST customer, or GibbsCAM customer, or a Cimatron customer, you go through to the licensing team. It goes to the licensing team, they fix a licensing issue, it's fixed. And you don't care where you get the support from.

Wade Anderson:

You just want your stuff to work, right?

Nick Spurrett:

You just want your stuff to work.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Nick Spurrett:

And so, will there be a cross share of technologies? I'm sure, if the right piece of technology sits within one of the technologies, then I'm sure it'll get cross-pollinated with the other technologies. But what we're not going to do is we're not going to make Cimatron a mill-turn, Swiss lathe solution because we've already got that with GibbsCAM. Why make that product a competitor to a product that you already own. That doesn't seem to make a great deal of sense to me.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Nick Spurrett:

And likewise, we're not going to massively enhance the toolpath engine inside of GibbsCAM to make it a real competitive mold and die solution.

Wade Anderson:

Right, you've got that.

Nick Spurrett:

Because yes, we've already got that. But do we need to improve the toolpaths? Obviously, of course we will. And we will continue to do that. I can rest assured everybody that is a GibbsCAM customer today and a Cimatron customer today, your products are loved and cared for and will be driven in the environment that you want them to be driven. Are we going to be complete silos? No, it doesn't make sense to be complete silos. We've got resellers that sell both products. We've got technical people that are within, with both products. There's no point in being siloed. The products are complimentary to each other. And if we got a really smart AE that knows both, why are we going to dishearten him by making him pick which product that he's going to be siloed in.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Nick Spurrett:

That doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

Wade Anderson:

Yep. How about the digitization? You know, there's all these buzz words in the industry now, right? So digitization of manufacturing. I think that's something that's been worked on for years, but you add a couple of buzz words to it and it takes on a whole new meaning in the marketplace. So talk about things, digital twin, for an example. You know what are you guys doing in the digital twin space, and what is it? You know for a typical job shop, what does that mean to them?

Nick Spurrett:

Well, let's take a step back.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

And let's talk about all these acronyms that everybody's now come up with. And it's almost like we've employed a load of professors to come up with some acronyms just to confuse mere mortals like me. And it's like even Industry 4.0, what does it really mean? When you really look at it, what does it really mean? Because, the professors can't agree exactly what it means. And I know that we spoke in the past, Wade, about Industry 4.0 or manufacturing. Well, anybody that owns a CAM system today, is already on the path of Industry 4.0. Because Industry 4.0 is technology within IOT, within the Cloud, within PC. So everybody that's CAD/CAM customer today, has already started the journey of Industry 4.0. But you talk about digital twins and everybody's now jumping on bandwagons of buzzwords, of digital twins, of OEE's. And we'll probably come on to OEE in a bit, but, there's hundreds of them now.

Nick Spurrett:

And let me just explain what I think digital twin really means. All it is, is a visual representation on a computer of something that is happening somewhere else. And that can be your whole shop floor. And that can be every single CNC machine tool. It can be your forklifts. It can be anything that you want to visually represent. And there are technologies out there that allow you to do that today. If I look at digital twins in our space, we're taking an Okuma machine, we are building an exact replica of that machine, fixtures, tooling, guarding, conveyors, chip removals, coolant floods, everything inside a built machine, inside a computer. So when you run the simulation, and its simulation, the vast majority of CAM companies simulate the CL data or the app data, they're not verifying the NC code. So we want to be able to see the machine that's on the shop floor. So when we hit the simulation button, we're seeing what that machine is going to do-

Wade Anderson:

With the NC code?

Nick Spurrett:

With, no.

Wade Anderson:

Still on the... Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

So this is still CL and app code.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

There are a couple of platforms out there that are true verification platforms. But they're also true verification platform money. And so what we do, is we build because we obviously work with yourself. I know one of our application engineers was in the [Partners in] THINC center last week, running some test parts. That post is as good as proven. Because we've cut the part for the customer on the very machine the customer is taking ownership of. It's an approved post because it's run.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And so once we know the post is good, we can then assure ourselves that the digital twin is good. So now, because we've got a cross-reference between actual toolpath and simulated toolpath, and we know they're the same. So now we're looking at the digital twin. So now if we're going to crash the machine, we're going to crash the machine on a computer screen. The cost of that is a few minutes. Doing it in real time and real life, the cost is very, very different.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

But the whole digital twin fact is, you can make digital twins of anything. You, like I said earlier, you can literally build your whole plant with every single machine. You can see material coming in, it's all on a computer. And in our space today, a digital twin definitely means the simulation of the machine tool that is on the shop floor, in your site. And that could be one or multiple.

Wade Anderson:

So the value for a customer, let's say, let's target the job shop type market. Let's say customers that's got 50 or less employees. Maybe five to twenty CNC machines, the value realization for that customer. Where is the return on that investment for them? Is it strictly just collision avoidance?

Nick Spurrett:

No, it's confidence. And as we all know, running a CNC, I'm old enough to- I did a mechanical engineering apprenticeship. And I, honestly, when I first programmed on the CNC machine tool and I press the go button, and had the feed turned right down, there was nerves.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And if you go back to, because that was the early eighties, if you go back and say right, "Well, here's an image of your machine. Here's an image of what it's going to do," the nerves would go. I've now got confidence of knowing that this part is good. I've got my speeds and feeds right, because, I've got it from the CAM platform, that's got it from the tooling company. Because all the tooling databases are built inside GibbsCAM. So I know that the feeds and speeds are right, I've got confidence of now pressing the button, and not so much walking away on the first off, but have confidence that everything's going to be good.

Wade Anderson:

I had a guy tell me, just kind of an analogy of confidence. And he said, "Have you ever driven across the Golden Gate bridge? Or you know, any of these big, large, tall bridges? You've got that small little guard rail running beside you and you will never hit it, you never need it. But you take that guard rail off, and I guarantee you hardly anybody would drive across that bridge." You know they just need that guard rail, that safety fence of knowing, that anything goes wrong I've got a little buffer space. So I kind of think of that from the digital twin standpoint. It increases that confidence level. It gives you a little bit of guardrail to know, hey I've run this thing in the virtual environment. I've seen what all the fixturing and the parameters of the machine tool looks like. Now we can run it with a high level of confidence on the real machine.

Nick Spurrett:

Because if you go back even six or seven years ago, the CNC, you wouldn't really see the CNC machine tool per se. There was a sort of visualization of one. But it wasn't yours, it was one that came out of the box.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Nick Spurrett:

And now because the fixture isn't correct, and the guard isn't correct, and the spindle, isn't, what value does it add? Might looks pretty on the screen.

Wade Anderson:

How close do you get from a cycle time standpoint. Can that be utilized for time studies and trying to figure out what your cost per part could be?

Nick Spurrett:

So that's a fantastic question, because what we have in our SigmaNEST solution today, is that very product. It's relatively new in launch, but we can now read in all the sheet metal material. We can understand the process planning. We can understand how long the part's going to take to make, how many of them per sheet. And that technology will really move over into the chip cutting space in the future. Because, we can show you cycle times today, but they're approximate.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

And it does depend on a number of factors. How quickly does it accelerate? Because on a computer screen it's instant.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

It's from feed to rapid, in a microsecond. Because the reality is the computer doesn't know that it takes time to speed up to maximum rapid, and then de-accelerate. So there's always an overlap. And the more you're out of cart, the more the cycle time will vary between actual and what the computer says.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

And because we're looking at optimum rates, as soon as it's off cart, it's then in rapid mode.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And that's a microsecond.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah. That's a big talking point for us on machine tools. You know, everybody does their fancy spreadsheets and they love checking out everybody's XYZ's and travels and rapid rates and comparing oh this guy's got you know, 3,000 inch per minute rapids, and this guy's 2,800 inch per minute rapid. What they don't get out of those spreadsheets like that, is the amount of time. Because nobody, and I don't care what machine you line up, you've got a certain distance that it takes to ramp that much mass up to full rapid, and then bring it right back down. So feature to feature, typically, if you're moving within four or five inches, that machine tool never hits full rapid, it doesn't have enough distance and time to get there, so.

Nick Spurrett:

But it's a bit like cars. And I mean people buy cars now that are naught to 60 in X seconds. They'll all do over a hundred mile an hour.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And that breaks every speed limit in the U.S. So, now they're looking at this naught to 60, how quickly does it get to naught to 60? And that's very true on the CNC machine tools. If you're moving four or five inches, you're never at full rapid.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

And that's the challenge that we have with cycle times. Because we type in what the rapid rate is. And it goes from point, well, one thou' of an inch off the part, to five inches away at full rapid.

Wade Anderson:

Yeah.

Nick Spurrett:

But it doesn't get there that quickly.

Wade Anderson:

Sure. Yep. Understood. Very good. Well Nick, if customers want to reach out to you and talk to you, what's the best way to get in touch with you guys?

Nick Spurrett:

Well GibbsCAM.com is obviously our global platform. They can always contact me at nick.spurrett@cambrio.com, but the website's the best place because anybody globally can log into, and it's translated into multiple languages and there's Contact Us. And you can download a free trial version using the website, and we will send you code for a trial version. It isn't a well now you have to fill in this and now you have to go through this question and answer session, and now you're not going to get some heavy sales..

Wade Anderson:

Your social security number.

Nick Spurrett:

Exactly. It is literally, you can go to the website and request a trial.

Wade Anderson:

Okay. Is there online training tools for somebody that's wanting to just kind of get started?

Nick Spurrett:

So we have online videos.

Wade Anderson:

Okay.

Nick Spurrett:

That are all available, because obviously somebody that's brand new that doesn't know that the latest version of GibbsCAM and wants a trial version. And we have existing customers that want to know before they upgrade to the next version. And there's training videos for those. We do a lot of training, obviously because of the global situation that we're all in today. Most of our training is done virtually. So we have a team of AE's, globally this is, that can provide training to any of our customers using any of the platforms. And again, it comes down to specifics, not only do we have product specifics for different technologies, we have different experts.

Wade Anderson:

Sure.

Nick Spurrett:

Because the reality is, is if you're a five-axis expert, you typically don't live in the Swiss turning space.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

So we have the Swiss space.

Wade Anderson:

An aerospace guy is typically different than a mold and die guy.

Nick Spurrett:

Absolutely.

Wade Anderson:

Right.

Nick Spurrett:

Yeah.

Wade Anderson:

Very good. Well, thank you for joining us today. Feel free to reach out to us with any ideas or questions that you've got. And until next time we'll see you then.

Nick Spurrett:

Wade, thank you very much.

Wade Anderson:

Thanks.