DEVELOP3D - Technology for the product lifecycle

Earlier this week I jetted off to Milan for the Delcam European press conference. Despite the weather (I clearly brought the rain with me) it was an interesting and informative visit with trips to Sandvik and Mazak, both users of Delcam’s CADCAM software.

Delcam has grown steadily since being founded in 1977. Just in the last ten years revenues have increased from £17.0 million to £31.8 million. Over 220 people are currently employed at its Birmingham headquarters, with more than 300 in the company’s overseas subsidiaries (one of which is Delcam Italia in Milan). Customers in a broad range of industries use its software and in fact, the company recently celebrated its 35,000th customer.

Presentations at the press conference covered highlights and new developments in its various product ranges including PartMaker, PowerSHAPE, PowerMILL, ArtCAM, FeatureCAM, Delcam for SolidWorks (above) and PowerINSPECT. A lot of these developments have already been or will be covered in the software reviews section of the magazine by Al. For instance in the June issue’s Reverse Engineering supplement he wrote a review of PowerINSPECT 2011. 

However, what really interests me is Delcam’s dedicated healthcare division, which was only established a year ago and since that time has experienced a 50% growth in dental solutions and a 350% in orthotic solutions. In fact, as Chris Lawrie, Delcam’s healthcare business development manager, said orthotics is the fastest-growing area of Delcam’s business. But this is not just down to its software solutions, which include DentCAD and DentMILL programs for the design and manufacture of dental restorations and the OrthoModel and OrthoMill software for the development of orthotics, but also the development of its own hardware. These iSeries hardware products for the orthotic and dental markets integrate with Delcam’s software to provide a complete solution.

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