The materials machined at Henke GmbH Zerspanungstechnik are primarily tool steels and stainless steels. Roughly 95% of the company’s machining involves these materials. The rest of the parts are mostly aluminum alloys, although the contract manufacturers occasionally machine plastics. 
"Every part is a challenge in itself," Steinmetz affirms. "Many of them can only be clamped with great effort, while the difficulty with others lies in their complex contours. Tolerances are also becoming increasingly tighter. The rule is now 5/100, even for parts with a diameter of one m. H7 is the benchmark for fits and tolerance-fit holes."

Three years ago, those responsible began inviting the manufacturers of the most widely used CAM packages on the market to the company for demos, including test machining. Tebis was the last company they interviewed two years ago. "We were immediately convinced. The tremendous range of possibilities was clear right from our first contact," the production manager reports. "We’ve come to know the Tebis team as highly competent experts who treat us as partners. The Tebis specialists have demonstrated from the very beginning that they take us and our concerns seriously. The energy Tebis put into our test machining alone was impressive."
Equally impressive was the tremendous range of functions offered in version 4.1 of the CAM system. "We could see right away that we had a lot to learn," Steinmetz recalls. "But it was also clear that it was absolutely worth the effort: The new freedom and the potential for automating many of our processes were extremely promising. And it was very clear: Tebis lived up to this potential right across the board."  

The die manufacturers use a color table to transfer information like tolerances and fits. Steinmetz describes the procedure: "We apply colors to the parts, then we run them through feature identification." "We consistently follow the 'Tebis route,' because it ensures fast and efficient programming and clean, collision-free programs."
This meant a lot of work at first. Tool libraries had to be created and filled; in addition to the geometry data, they include parameter sets optimized for different materials along with the spindle speed, feed rate and all the other required data. "In roughly 80% of cases, we rely on the tool manufacturer's data," says Steinmetz. "They’re precisely configured as specified in the Haimer tool presetting device. This library alone represents more than 200 hours of work."

According to Steinmetz, a feature like a tapped hole can be created with just three mouse-clicks, including all the relevant parameters. The same applies to features like pockets and free-form surfaces. "Tebis then automatically retrieves all the relevant parameters from the color table, selects the tool and creates the milling path and the chamfer," the production manager says of the current procedure. "We can now generate programs very conveniently with Tebis 4.1. Once you've done a thorough job on the preparatory work, the system can save you lots of time on programming over the long term. We have parts that Tebis can create essentially automatically. Depending on the geometry, we’re reducing our usual programming time by up to two-thirds. And the time needed for calculation in Tebis 4.1 is significantly shorter than in other CAM systems.
"The support Tebis provided made it much easier to get started with automated programming. "We booked a very comprehensive training course with Tebis," Steinmetz recalls. "But that doesn't mean you can immediately start programming. The requisite levels of knowledge and skill can only be built in day-to-day work with the program. We had a lot of support from the Tebis Implementation team during that phase, and we gradually grew into this new approach to the task."

More employees will receive training in the near future. The training is worth the effort, given the broad spectrum of the modules in Tebis 4.1. Because ultimately, the programmers have to become confident with the various functions in their day-to-day programming work. "We put the money into training because we feel it's important," the production manager confirms. "Even though the basic training course is mainly focused on dies and doesn’t cover many parts specific to production machining – the Tebis experts were good at addressing our questions."
The contract manufacturers are now using Tebis 4.1 Release 8. "Every update brings new improvements, and many new functions have since been added to the original offering. "Recently, we were very pleased with the new ability to easily subtract two topologies," Steinmetz says. "But we also appreciate the little things, like the ability to scroll with the mouse wheel, because we already know and value this function in other programs. Even in seemingly simple matters, it's clear how much attention the CAM experts dedicate to users' requests and suggestions. That’s another reason we believe that we’re in very good hands in our partnership with Tebis."