SigmaTEK Academy and Conference proves useful in tumultuous times

SigmaTEK President Ben TerreBlanche discusses what modern manufacturing software’s new capabilities can do for fabricators interested in streamlining their front office and shop floor operations.

When Ben TerreBlanche, founder and president of manufacturing software company SigmaTEK, got up to address the crowd during the first day of the SigmaTEK Academy and Conference (STAC) at the Sharonville Convention Center in Cincinnati on May 8, he wanted to set the scene with a brief overview of just what fabricators are up against today. It was a pretty expansive list.

As the U.S. tries to address the world’s steel overcapacity, which is primarily caused by China’s state-supported mills, fabricators are having to contend with rising raw material costs. In the meantime, some fabricators can’t get the materials they need from domestic sources because some steelmakers simply haven’t invested in operations over the past several years in the face of international competition and razor-thin margins. Large U.S. manufacturers have struggled to take advantage of overseas markets, particularly China, as they encounter challenging hurdles and state-subsidized competitors, putting profitability, and sometimes intellectual property, at risk.

TerreBlanche said that it’s easy to point the fingers at the current steel and aluminum tariffs as reasons for the uncertainty in the U.S. economy, but he believed that the fabricating community should wait to see how these trade actions play out. With the number of manufacturing plants shrinking 22 percent from 2000 to 2014, which translates into 78,000 facility closings, he said the federal government had to do something.

“Automation is often seen as the problem [for the shrinking domestic manufacturing base], but it’s not automation,” he said. “It’s been trade practices.”

This uncertain manufacturing environment only reinforced the need for fabricators to tighten up their operations even further. Not many have the luxury of easily passing along price increases that result from rising overhead costs, but all shops have the ability to work smarter. That’s where modern manufacturing software can make a difference, which happened to be the overall theme throughout the two-day conference.

How so? Take more accurate quoting, for example. A shop needs to quote jobs correctly to be profitable. RFQ is not the time for a fab shop to be conducting a guessing game. TerreBlanche reviewed the quick nature of revising an old quote in the SigmaNEST software. He also talked of how the next generation of software, SigmaNEST SX, the company’s 3-D software platform that will debut at FABTECH® 2018 in Atlanta, Nov. 6-8, will be able to read 3-D files and extract information automatically to determine production methods and time spent on the shop floor for manufacturing, which both can lead to quick and accurate quotes.

Want more? TerreBlanche said that SigmaTEK is always working to improve its nesting engine, which can really make a difference for fabricators that have not relied on computer-generated nesting sequences. For those shops that have been using the latest nesting software, the conference provided tips on how color-coded nest models can help employees charged with sorting parts coming off a fiber laser and how remnants can be best used to maximize material usage.

The next generation of software also will have a robust planning engine, TerreBlanche said. With a focus on creating production “recipes” for certain types of fabrications, the software developers have created a tool that will be able to decipher the best and most efficient way to fabricate a part. The goal is to give a fabricator the ability to offer solid delivery schedules to customers, because they have confidence that the parts will be ready by the date determined by the software. Additionally, such computing power will give fabricators insight into where bottlenecks might develop and where capacity might exist on the shop floor.

In the not-too-distant future, TerreBlanche said he hoped to connect software to more sensors and video cameras on the shop floor to fully exploit the power of modern interconnectivity. He offered up the example of using energy sensors on a press brake, which would allow the control software to know when exactly the ram was engaged for the first time following an extended break. This start coincides with the end of setup time and the start of a new job. It also eliminates the need for the brake operator to signal the start of the job in the software, allowing him to focus on making parts, not keeping up with administrative tasks. With this type of setup, the information from the shop floor is accurate and delivered in real time.

Fortunately, STAC also gave the SigmaNEST software users and company employees a chance to celebrate SigmaTEK’s 25th anniversary with a party on the first night of the conference. A chance for some fun in the face of very challenging economic times is always a welcome respite.

Editor-in-Chief Dan Davis can be reached at dand@thefabricator.com.