Siemens NX offers a complete and realistic design and engineering environment

Siemens NX offers a complete and realistic design and engineering environment

At the helm of this leap into the ultra-modern system landscape of toolmaking: MAIT. In the space of just four weeks in 2012, MAIT equipped the long-established Rhineland-Palatinate company with Siemens NX as high end software, modernizing their product development and manufacturing from the ground up. The decisive factor behind this decision was the aspiration to satisfy the growing requirements and ever more offbeat wishes of the market. To bring the data management up to new, modern standards as well, the MAIT specialists also introduced Teamcenter as a PLM/PDM solution. 

The MAIT digitalization experts were already responsible for all product design, development, and data management solutions at Pfefferkorn long before the turn of the millennium—and they remain so to this day. Peter Graßmann values the cooperation: "Our experience with MAIT has never been anything but positive. And in 2012, we suddenly woke up in a whole new, three-dimensional world. Without a doubt a particular highlight in our long partnership," he affirms. 

Of course, a lot has happened since 2012: In the meantime, the workstations in Simmern are running with NX version 12. The MAIT consultants are always on hand in the event of questions about the software. Which means that Pfefferkorn can rest assured that its CAD/CAM and PLM systems are always available and up to date. For all intents and purposes, the company has a support subscription with MAIT, and can at all times use the latest versions and features. Naturally, the MAIT consultants also support the customer in integrating the latest versions. "There’s simply too great a danger of the entire system grinding to a halt if the users take the matter in hand themselves," Jörg Böhnke from MAIT explains. 

Böhnke has long been on a mission at Pfefferkorn as lead consultant—and, like his team colleagues, enjoys a particularly high level of trust there: "Many of the MAIT employees have been here almost forever. Always having the same contact partners who know our systems inside out makes it particularly pleasant working together," says Pfefferkorn’s Peter Graßmann. 

The MAIT experts have recently installed a so-called "post processor" to take automation a step further. This software, individually adapted to Pfefferkorn's machine, bridges the gap between the NX CAM programming system and the actual machine. The post processor "translates" the data from NX CAM into a language the milling or turning machine can understand. The result: integrated automation from the initial product idea in NX CAD to the finished tool for this new product. 

Pfefferkorn has also decided to purchase an NX CAM 5-axis simultaneous milling solution to match the new milling machine that is currently being put into operation. A machine room simulation (CSE) specially adapted by MAIT rounds off the scenario. The advantage is that the machining can be digitally simulated before real production takes place, meaning that collisions in the machine are no longer an issue—buzzword digital twin. 

More digital work and less on-site presence are part of the new normal. In the future, it will also be necessary to be able to work away from the real production environment to an increasing extent. This inevitably entails a complete digital product model. For MAIT, this "digital twin" is the real heart of Industry 4.0. It contains all the information about the product, its manufacture, and its condition along the entire value chain from development through planning and production to after-sales service. Properties and behavior of a product can be perfectly simulated by this digital replica before physical manufacturing takes place. It is then only a small step to the automation even of complex production processes. 

Without question: Hans Pfefferkorn was a visionary founder and ahead of his time. But a development like this? That’s something he certainly wouldn’t have foreseen.