|
1. What are the trends driving the CNC software market today? ‘Need for speed’ is one main driver that is driving the CNC software. Faster programming, faster machining and faster production. The population of CNC machines is growing at a very high rate, but the availability of skilled people to use these machines is not keeping pace. Manual CNC programming skills are becoming scarce. Competition is driving CNC machine buyers to cut costs of the machines that they buy. One of the ways is to avoid programming options on the controller and use CAD/CAM software instead. People want software that can do much more than just generate CNC programs. They want automatic tool selection, selection cutting parameters, cycle time calculation and generation of machining documents like process sheets.These factors are increasing the market for such software and deciding the design parameters of the next generation of CNC programming software. 2. In the past one-year did you feel a significant change among the Indian manufacturing industries in embracing the sophisticated software (CAD/CAM/CAE) products? It is difficult to remain isolated from the all the changes that are happening in the manufacturing industry due to globalisation. Severe competition has forced the metal cutting industry to re-adjust their lenses to get sharper focus on profitability. This is where the CAD/CAM/CAE kicks in. We export to many countries around the world, and observe that the Indian metal cutting companies are far more forward looking and ready to invest in technology products than their counterparts in Europe andUSA. The new companies in the metal cutting industry here are predominantly run by first or second generation entrepreneurs who are technology savvy and ready to invest in software. They factor these investments into their business plans. 3. How big is the market for CNC software in India and what is is your market share (approx.)? The CAD/CAM market is very fragmented in terms of vendors / suppliers and multi-layered from the applications view point. It is therefore difficult to assess and quote figures on this. The software ranges in price from 0.5 Lakhs to 10 Lakhs. CADEM is the only Indian company in India that develops software for the metal cutting industry, and we guess we have about 60 % of the market share. 4. How has the Indian market evolved in the past few years and where is it headed (in terms of technology as well as business potential)? The Indian buyer has always been very receptive to the use of software in shop floors. He now has more money power and volume of business to justify investment in software to improve his machines’ productivity. CNC software is driven by machine tool technology and cutting tool technology. 5. What are the product & services offered by Cadem? Do you cater to the Indian market or do you also service overseas market? We specialize in developing software products for improving the productivity of CNC machining. Our range of uniquely designed CAD/CAM software products is helping manufacturers around the globe to cut metal intelligently and remain profitable in the highly competitive metal cutting industry. Apart from CAD/CAM software, we have DNC systems and Wireless CNC machine monitoring systems which track productivity and support the philosophy of TPM and its way of measuring the productivity index – Overall Equipment Effectiveness. Our products are installed in about 10000 CNC shops around the world. We sell through a network of resellers worldwide and have localised language versions. They are recommended and sold as OE by almost every CNC machines builder in India and a few companies abroad. We take pride in being one of the very few technology driven software product developers in India. We pioneered the CAD/CAM software development in 1990. |
6. Many MNC’s are realising the importance of India as a cost-effective destination for outsourcing CAD/CAM/CAE work. How are you planning to capitalise on this trend? Cadem is a technology-driven company and strongly committed to developing innovative products. Our business model is based on creating intellectual property. From what we know, only low-end, labour intensive jobs get outsourced here. Agreed, there is a lot of money in this services business, but it involves doing mind numbing repetitive work. Cadem’s creative minds do not get excited by such work; it is neither intellectually challenging nor long term. Cadem’s engineers love being engineers. 7. Tell us about your client-base. Is it skewed towards any particular industry segment like the automobile? Please name some of your key clients and the products they use. We cater to a real large spectrum of CNC users worldwide. You can find Cadem CAD/CAM in small one man job shops in the dusty lanes of Faridabad, and also in large corporate like TATA, WIPRO, TYCO, XOMOX and MARUTHI. Globally, you can see Cadem CAD/CAM in places like Volkswagen’s plant in South Africa, in defence aerospace contractor SMITHS Aerospace in Dayton, USA, and in Thai-Suzuki’s motorcycle plant near Bangkok. Recently, we installed our wireless SHOPtrack in Rolex Industries, Rajkot for 100 CNC machines; it is one of its kind in India. To this list add most CNC machine builders in India like ACE Designers, LMW and HMT and cutting tool companies like SECO tools and Kennametal. Cadem CAM Lab software is the de-facto CAD/CAM syllabus for Mechanical and Industrial engineering in VTU, Karnataka and Anna University, Tamilnadu, about 400 engineering colleges use our sofware. 8. Among all the CNC software, which are most popular in India? CNC software for high precision parts production in the auto, defence, textiles, valves and the heavy engineering industry in India is dominated by Cadem’s CAPSmill and CAPSturn. Cadem’s wireless SHOPtrack online CNC production monitoring system is the latest trendsetter in the industry. In the die and mould industry, programs like UG, Cimatron and Delcam share the market. 9. Could you trace the evolution of CNC software? How powerful and user friendly have they become? From APT of 1950’s to present day Conversational programming, CAD/CAM has come a long way. The software has to keep pace with advancements in machine tools and cutting tools technology. Trends like high speed machining, rigid tapping and turn-groove machining are reflected in the software. Software is increasingly becoming conversational and more graphical user-interface based. The software now is able to take a lot of logical decisions and guide the user through the metal cutting process. Today, to generate a CNC program you only need to be a good machinist – able to do the process planning, tool selection and work holding design. You need not know CNC programming at all. 10. Kindly share with us your future plans. Product enhancement is a never ending process, and our existing products are being constantly upgraded. All our present and future products are driven by advances in machine tools, cutting tool technology, communications and manufacturing systems. We straddle across these multiple technologies to build our products. We see ourselves working at the forefront of metal cutting technology and software. In our CAD/CAM products, the innovation is towards reducing programming time and increasing the machining efficiency.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * |
