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Radan Macro Slashes Programming Time From 1,100 Hours to Around 330

NES Architectural were facing a marathon task to create 110 panels in anodised aluminium, each containing 27 completely random wave lines comprising 1,200 holes in six randomly dispersed sizes. They were commissioned to produce the artistic architectural metalwork cladding for electricity substations at London’s 2012 Olympic Village.

Using Radan, the world’s most powerful sheet metal CAD/CAM software, ensured the job was not only finished to gold medal standards, but a unique macro written specially for the project saved up to 770 hours of machine programming time.

Having 27 completely random waves on each panel made up of dimpled holes, NES Architectural’s Operations Director Patrick Holt says that even with Radan, it would have taken about ten hours to program each panel for machining on their Safan Challenger turret punch; that’s a total of 1,100 hours to program the entire project of 2,970 waves made up of 132,000 holes.

The macro produced CNC programming that guaranteed uniquely placing all 132,000 holes throughout the 110 panels, and slashed programming time to around a third of what it would have been without it. “It took between three and four hours to program each panel using the macro,” says Patrick Holt.  “That’s a total of between 330 and 440 hours to program the entire project, which is a massive saving from the 1,100 hours it would have taken without it.”

And an added complexity was that they had to use an upforming tool to avoid distortion while creating the dimples around the holes. “This meant that once the randomly-sized and randomly-placed holes had been punched out, the sheet had to be turned over to produce the dimples. So while there were six programs for each side, we had to flip the panel over, meaning there were actually 12 programs per panel.” All six hole sizes – 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28 mm – were used 200 times on every sheet, and NES Architectural had to prove to the artist that the sizes, along with the individual waves, would be placed totally at random.

While the Challenger’s bed enables an area measuring 1,250 x 1,000 to be machined at a time, the J57S aluminium panels were required in two sizes, 3.6m x 2m, and 2.4m x 2m, meaning they had to be repositioned several times. Even so, the actual machining of each panel only took 1½  hours.

NES Architectural employ one full-time Radan programmer and can call on two additional fully trained programmers from the shop floor to operate their two Radan stations. For this job Patrick Holt bought an additional three-month Radan license, and all three stations were used to carry out the marathon programming task. After the Olympics, the sub-stations will form part of the grid supplying electricity to Greater London.

“Radan’s support team were very helpful and very responsive. I approached them about this project on a Friday, and had my macro on the Monday. Basically, it’s a random generator, which is exactly what we needed to create the random wave lines with the six different sizes of hole and associated dimples.”

NES Architectural is renowned for its bespoke, high quality niche architectural metalwork and cladding such as flashings, copings and rainscreen panels, along with windows, doors and curtain walling. Projects include:
• Anodised architectural diamonds for Liverpool University, (pictured right) which won a RIBA North West Architectural Award
• Grosvenor Waterside in London, where they put images on panels to create a picture going round the building – 6,900 of the 7,000 panels were unique (pictured right)
• Complex curves and trims in the atrium of a refitted oil rig in Lowestoft, for BP Valhall
• Combining rainscreen cladding and high resolution UV printing to produce the largest mural in the UK, at Poole Bus Station
• Working with their sister company NES, they created the UK’s largest flat panel LED light installation by designing, manufacturing and installing two types of unique bulkhead feature panels, made of bricks and glass, around the internal areas of the central and northern arcades of Westfield Shopping and Lifestyle Centre (pictured right) at Stratford in London, near the Olympic Village.

Based in Colchester, Essex, NES Architectural used to be known as Guilform until they joined the NES Group in autumn 2010, and have used Radan for nearly 20 years. Operating from around 100,000 square foot premises combining the two near-neighbouring sites, NES Architectural have 20 employees, with double that number at NES.
 
Because they specialise in one-off unique projects (Patrick Holt says a batch size of ten is a luxury), they are constantly programming with Radan. “Unlike a lot of sheet metal subcontractors, we have zero repeat business. Once we’ve made something it’s unlikely we’ll make it again, so therefore programming is an integral part of our manufacturing process day in, day out.”

When they receive a customer’s drawing – usually as a dxf file – they import it directly in Radan. “We develop the flat blank in Radan, then select the tools and create the CNC machining code. Quite often we make a small mock-up sample which might be 1m x 1m showing all the features involved in the job. We use Radan because it’s so flexible and is the industry standard for the prototyping that we do. I think everyone uses Radan, don’t they? We certainly use it every hour of every working day – it’s absolutely key to our operation, and without it we couldn’t undertake the projects we do.”
 

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