Case Study – Guaranteed no stress strategy for selecting plasma cutting nesting software
GUARANTEED NO STRESS STRATEGY FOR SELECTING PLASMA CUTTING NESTING SOFTWARE
Clients of Specialist Machinery Sales appreciate the flexibility of having nesting software that is readily available and supported on all five continents. This makes it easier to find staff that have experience in programming and using the full functionality of the software to maximise the ROI and arc on efficiency from the machine tool.
No one appreciates waiting for any computer software to run through a cycle. We all suffer from a little impatience from time to time when the pressure is on to meet delivery schedules. What has been discovered is the nesting software provided by international suppliers is the superior choice compared to investing in home brand software that relies on a boutique machine tool builders in house research and development team.
The plasma cutting market is now trending towards BIM systems for full integration of estimation and steel processing stock control and inventory management systems. This is where the international software companies have been investing their research and development to support their clients' ambitions of measuring and running their systems and machinery. Having a nesting software plug and being able to play with a client’s BIM software allows for auditable data to be compatible with our buyers' strategy to innovate instead of stagnating. Have you enquired if the nesting software your business is considering will be compatible with the latest BIM software available today?
Australian businesses that had invested in a tier 1 plasma cutting machine in the ’90s were caught out when this machine tool builder experienced financial trouble. When clients rely on a machine tool builders home brand controller and boutique software the risk of the business being left with an orphan controller and software, that no one can support, is higher than specifying an international software package that has thousands of more licenses sold every year.
A plasma cutting business can mitigate the risk of a machine tool builder going into administration, or selling to the Chinese, or a venture capitalist who is not motivated to support existing clients software. When investing in internationally recognised software and nesting packages, plasma cutting owners understand that these suppliers sell thousands of sets of licenses across the world so the research and development departments are world-class and available locally or remotely to support your business.
Businesses that use the one nesting software package to program a fleet of existing machines like routers, plasma cutting, waterjet or laser cutting and turret punch machines have an advantage against the businesses who use numerous software packages to run various machines.
Ask your machine tool supplier for a shared screen demonstration on the full functionality of a plasma cutting combination drilling machine with internationally recognised software to learn if the machines are truly compatible. If the software and controller are not compatible with other nesting and programming packages this may indicate the plasma cutting machine tool builder has a small software department that requires yearly maintenance and support costs to fund this department.
Alternatively, the international software suppliers do not find the machine tool builder relevant on the world market due to the limited amount of sales each year. For the software provider to share their intellectual property with a boutique machine tool builder, that has their own home brand controller and boutique software may provide intellectual property disputes. So for a few ‘potential’ software licenses sales a year, both sides continue the Mexican standoff where the end-user ultimately pays the price from not having flexibility and choice in the software that can drive these machines.
When a buyer is already running a laser cutting machine and they want to add to their fleet of machines and invest in a plasma cutting machine, their preference is to keep the same software working across both machines. This becomes considerably more difficult when the plasma cutting machine tool builder does not have the resources or motivation to work with any alternative software than their own home brand system. This means two sets of different software would be required to run the laser and plasma which is not the case when investing in machines from SMS.
Clients of SMS do not like being captured by any machine tool builder that has a boutique CNC controller and home brand software. Several clients of SMS were promised a plasma cutting machine tool builder. Software upgrades and orders were placed accordingly. The machine tool builder’s strategy was changed without fear or favour to their existing clients that had believed the rhetoric and are now paying the price of expensive software upgrades which has become the golden gift that keeps on giving to the machine tool builder.
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Contact Specialist Machinery Sales today to discuss a superior machinery strategy for your business.