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90 MMS June 2014 mmsonline.com feature already had," Mr. Gustafson says. While seeking out snags in the company's workfow, a central issue quickly surfaced. It involved the amount of time Mr. Gustafson, as programmer, was devoting to writing corrective code once post processing had been completed and simulations run—often with the added aggravation of being unable to obtain original post-processing programs for equipment that hadn't been purchased directly from OEM dealers. Such problems quickly began chipping away at a machine's value, from a produc- tion standpoint, because so much time was required to keep it running. That's when Mr. Gustafson began researching post processing sof tware development companies and the state of their latest technologies. Productive Paths Some time before, Brian Francis, director of research and development at ICAM, which is headquartered in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada, had begun considering the possibility of develop- ing a new technology, which eventually became known as post processing with integrated virtual machining (PPVM). While there was software avail- able to identify toolpath problems, the simulations had to be run after post processing, and there was no automated means of connection between post processing and simulation; the programmer had to rewrite the code manually before it could be loaded into the CNC machine. Mr. Francis envisioned something that could not only predict— a nd th e refo re preve nt—c o llis io ns a nd ove r- travel from happening in the frst place, but also would automatically identify and apply the most- productive tool path. In 2011, Mr. Francis met Javad Barakchi, a mechanical engineering graduate student just beginning his postdoctoral work, and hired him to oversee the project that he'd had in mind for so long. "We decided to call it 'SmartPath,' since that really encompasses ever y thing we wanted to achieve," Mr. Francis says. Before beginning the project, Mr. Barakchi conducted a survey of the company's existing clientele, asking what problems they were encoun- tering and what solutions they'd like to have on hand. "The top two issues we identified were toolpath collisions and the machine axes over- travels," he recalls. "Other problems included the amount of time that was being spent creating and editing CAM positioning paths, so we defnitely felt that we were on the right track after hearing from the end users." The frst, and most time-consuming, aspect of addressing these issues was coming up with a "general solution" that would apply to all types of fve-axis machining centers, making the technology "machine independent." Another was to automate certain processes where the NC programmer had once been forced to step in. The goal was to develop a solution that merged At left, a CAD/CAM- generated tool path requires a great deal of space within the machine enclosure, while the optimized version at right offers more efficient and streamlined movements. cad/caM toolpath smartPath 0614_MMS_Valley.indd 90 5/14/2014 9:54:23 AM