Already successfully
tested in the
marketplace, EMO 2019
was the offi cial launch
for new Esprit with AI
CADCAM/PRODUCTION IT SUPPLEMENT
ENTER ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Intelligent
process modelling
In the CADCAM area at EMO, one particular highlight was the arrival of artifi cial intelligence (AI) in the
support of toolpath creation. Both DMG Mori and Yamazaki Mazak are developing or have offerings in this
area (p14), but independent CADCAM software developer DP Technology, author of Esprit, was making
lots of noise about its development
of years, but that EMO marked its “ofcial
launch”. He says that the company already
has some 500 installations in Germany and
a similar number in the USA.
“It’s proven on the market. We did a soft
launch to prove it and now we can actually
ofcially launch here at EMO.” And the
benets are, he says, “10, 20, 30%
reductions in cycle time, but 50-75% in
programming time reduction”. Yet while he
says DP Technology is happy to be helping
out in the ofce, that’s not the biggest payoff.
“The real leverage of CAM software is
not the engineering ofce, it is the expensive
equipment on the shopoor – set-up time
and cycle time. And within this new world,
where we have a very accurate digital twin of
the machine and the tooling and the
workholding, and we have automatic
positioning done for all the rapid moves, our
users have a signicantly higher degree of
condence in the program. And so set-up
times on the machine are also reduced.
We’re seeing good reductions, maybe of the
order of 25 to 50%.”
In characterising what DP Technology’s
focus is with Esprit, Matthew’s says it is
concentrating on getting all relevant data
correct ahead of programming, so as to be
able to create the best program in the rst
instance and avoid the typical debugging
process usually required. Typically, it’s been
program the job, then run it through
simulation to see what’s wrong with it.
People may still want to verify to conrm,
due to the critical nature of a part or
machine, but it will be conrmation, not
debugging.
He told Machinery more about the
software. “It has a fuzzy logic AI engine
inside it and this is driving many different
features within the product, doing many
different things for the customer. The
principle of that is it has some data that it’s
using, which we could call a digital twin,
taking in the digital denition of the
The company’s fourth-generation
software uses a patent-pending AI
engine to simplify the programming
process and improve machine productivity.
The system is ‘machine-aware’, using digital
twins of the CNC machine, tooling and
xtures to drive the AI engine. Says the
company: “These new advancements, the
result of 35 years of innovation, make this
unveiling the most exciting product rollout in
the history of the company.”
Explains Chuck Mathews, chief
technology ofcer, DP Technology: “Our AI
engine represents a fundamental change in
the way CNC machines are driven. The new
Esprit CAM system’s AI machine-aware
algorithms provide an exceptional user
experience – simplifying programming,
increasing tool life and improving machine
performance.”
In fact, Matthews told Machinery in an
exclusive interview at EMO that the software
has actually been on the market for a couple
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