The power behind the revolution

Following on from Elumatec’s successful TechDays event, managing director Phil Heavey discusses the firm’s production software offering.

The 20th century might not feel all that long ago, but in technological terms, it’s a different age.

In fenestration and construction, we’ve seen a dramatic transformation – one that’s made businesses bigger, better, and more productive than ever before.

But it’s also shifted expectations. When they come to a supplier like Elumatec, fabricators don’t just want machines anymore. They want an efficient, comprehensive, user-friendly system for boosting their productivity and helping them grow.

That’s why Elumatec has invested in the software side of its operation over the past few years.

Our in-house software development arm, elusoft, is able to offer software solutions that let its clients take their businesses to the next level.

eluCad, which simplifies the programming of profile machining centres, is one of the firm’s most popular offerings. Once, programming a machine was a laborious affair, and required in-depth coding knowledge. With eluCad, users just enter the key data, and the software does the rest. Alternatively, operators can input free-form drawings, which the machine will then follow.

The software also features collision-control. If it calculates that machine parts or clamping elements are in the movement path of the machine, it will stop production, preventing expensive machine crashes and downtimes.

More recently, Elumatec released eluCloud. Designed to give factory managers a clear oversight of the manufacturing process, eluCloud offers live updates of production status and real-time efficiency calculations, letting users quickly identify errors and unexpected dips in productivity.

eluCloud combines three different modules in a single app, accessible worldwide via smartphone, tablet, laptop or PC.

The eluCloud monitor gives users a clear overview of all their machine and production data. It lets them track quantities of parts produced, production duration, downtimes, and the service life of any tools used.

The eluCloud server is where the data is stored, and is always available to be analysed and used online via any web-enabled device. By storing the information of elusoft’s own server, the burden on the customer’s own IT resources are significantly reduced.

eluCloud analytics helps users break down the collected data into useful information they can act on. It makes a detailed analysis of productivity, both in terms of individual machines and a fabricator’s machine pool as a whole, helping customers optimise their production times.

Fabrication is changing. It’s moving further and further away from being a purely manual process, and becoming more and more driven by software and technology.

Today, it’s the software, not the machines, that make the biggest difference to the quality and the amount of product a fabricator can make. That’s why Elumatec has invested so extensively in its software division.

We employ 25 full-time computer programmers who are constantly striving to improve the software packages we provide, which in turn allows our machinery products to perform to an even higher standard.

www.elumatec.co.uk