Mastercam : A heritage of CAM excellence

Meghan Summers West, Chief Operating Officer, Mastercam

Q. Mastercam has gained substantial market share in machine tool industry , please brief its journey from the inception & share some its milestones?
Mastercam was launched more than 30 years ago. It was driven by two brothers’ specific set of skills in mathematics, programming, and shop-floor machining experience. Since then, we’ve maintained a tight focus on what made us successful from the beginning. We talk directly with machine shops around the world to see what’s needed and what’s coming. This means we not only provide practical programming tools to get jobs done quickly, but groundbreaking new techniques to inspire CNC programmers.

Q. Please brief us about company’s global reach & what are the global alliances that has been made in order to out-front the competition?
Our reach extends across the globe, with many of our representatives having decades of experience with both their local market and with Mastercam directly. We choose our partners carefully to ensure that they can build long-term support relationships with Mastercam users. As the world’s most widely-used CAM system, we need to be able to work smoothly with virtually any machine tool. To this end, we’ve forged many mutually beneficial relationships with machine tool manufacturers that let us prepare for “the next big thing” as well as helping them demonstrate what their machines can do. Similarly, we have excellent relationships with CAD developers because our users require us to work with virtually any type of CAD file. And we do have excellent relationships with CAD developers. SOLIDWORKS® is a great example. We have a tightly integrated Gold Partner version of the software that runs within SOLIDWORKS®, and we have a good relationship with the company to help keep us on top of what’s going on in the industry.

Brothers Brian and Mark Summers stand next to Meghan Summers West.

Q. What are the market prospects for the Mastercam products in India and How do you plan to position these products?
For us, India represents an unsurpassed collection of talent, experience, skill, and opportunity. The economic growth outlook for the next few years is great by all reports. Large and rapidly growing sectors such as Aerospace, Automotive, Telecom, Medical, and even infrastructure expansion require the backbone of manufacturing that we can help support. Our strategy in India is similar at its root as our strategy across the globe. Understand the needs of the industries engaged in manufacturing and, more importantly, the practical needs of the people responsible for programming parts for those industries.

Q. Can you brief us about the marketing strategies that were applied in order to stand out in the competition of the industry?
I can sum up our strategy in three simple words: Practicality, Support, and Advancement. By practicality, I mean that we strive to make sure every tool in the software solves a problem or improves a process that we’ve seen in day-to-day machine shops. We want to ensure that the toolset in Mastercam gives a programmer a way to complete any project they take. In the end, our goal is not our software itself, but the results it achieves for our users. Support is the second pillar of our strategy. We feel we have the best and most experienced global support network today. We have local representatives with decades of experience, ready to share their knowledge with their customers and with the entire Mastercam community. This is vital, because in many ways, machining is the most unforgiving part of the entire manufacturing process. CAD designs can be edited, but once metal is removed, it can’t be put back. Finally, advancement is crucial to make sure that our users are as competitive and productive as possible. Our proprietary Dynamic Motion technology is a great example of this. It’s a cutting motion engine that drives many of our toolpaths. It can save up to 70% of machining time; at the same time it dramatically extends tool life.

The Mastercam corporate headquarters in Tolland, CT, USA.

Q. Brief us about the R&D and Quality policy for your business?
Our development is built on a repeating cycle of constant creation and testing so that as many issues as possible can be worked out as quickly as possible. At the same time, we have a large R&D machine shop in our facility that constantly tests the software in a wide variety of real-world machining situations. Finally, we run a wide and extremely valuable public Beta program so existing users can try out new features and report back with comments and suggestions.

Q. What are the key technological trends that are driving your industry?
The key trends in CAM software are simple but powerful: constantly increase the speed and efficiency of the software, automate where possible, deliver programming methods that make the best possible use of machine tools, tooling and material, and make the software capable of handling the increasing variety of jobs a shop encounters. I mentioned our Dynamic Motion technology earlier. It’s a good example of a software advancement designed to address many of these points. It can dramatically reduce machining time, it’s governed by “smart” algorithms that automate much of the complex work, and it generates cutter motion that is easier on the machine, extends the life of the tool, and is smoother in the material.

Mastercam is extensively tested at the company’s in-house machine shop.

Q. Could you brief us on Indian & Global perspective of machine tool manufacturing industry? What are the distinguishing factors?
The machine tool market has seen dramatic ups and downs since 2009. During that year, the machine tool market as a whole took a sharp drop with some manufacturers losing as much as 80% of their orders. But as the global economy began to rebound, the pent up demand for those machine tools rose quickly and has stayed very healthy since. In the United States, the machine tool market is exceptionally strong, and there are many other countries that show strong machine tool consumption including China, Germany, South Korea, and Mexico.

Q. Please comment on the current machine tool scenario in India ?
India remains one of the top machine tool consumers, as well as a very large producer. However, the demand is surpassing the supply, potentially creating a gap and a demand for more machine tools than are currently available. The industry is rapidly moving toward ever more advanced CNC equipment as segments such as medical, automotive, and consumer products demand it.

Q. In your opinion how can the Indian machine tool industry become globally competitive?
From working with our Indian representatives, we feel the Indian machine tool industry is on an excellent path now. Although there may be a gap between the supply and demand of machine tools, it appears more companies are looking to fill that gap. And the equipment they appear to be filling the gap with (increasingly sophisticated CNC machines)should yield not only a stronger machine tool market, but even more competitive machine shops.
Another powerful tool for increasing global competitiveness is heavy emphasis on manufacturing education. Whether it’s a machinist sharpening their Mastercam skills through training, or a classroom of students getting prepared for and excited about the industry, manufacturing education is vital. This is especially true in any market where growth is expected – that growth will require new, intelligent, skilled people to sustain it. We’ve been dedicated to manufacturing education since we started, and it will always be an important part of our company.

Different types of machine tools are circulated into and out of Mastercam’s Research & Development (R&D) shop.

Q. How do your perceive the future of the Indian machine tool industry ?
We’re excited by it. There are so many positives and so many manufacturing and machine tool opportunities that India represents for itself and for the world, and we’re eager to see how we can help.

Q. What is your vision for Mastercam ?
Our vision is to remain focused on the fundamentals that help make Mastercam shops successful every day – deliver software that makes day-to-day machining easy, that constantly offers creative new techniques, and that inspires machinists.