The History of CAM—Past, Present and Future
The manufacturing and modeling industries are constantly advancing—adapting to
new needs and changes in industry standards. The entire market and maker community,
however, wouldn’t be anywhere if not for computer aided manufacturing (CAM).
CAM has certainly has had an interesting history—spanning back as far as the 1940s. Not
familiar with the history of CAM? That’s fine—we’ve got you covered.
Computer Aided Manufacturing
Computer aided manufacturing (CAM) typically refers to the use of numerical
control (NC) software to create G-code to drive computer numerical control (CNC)
machine tools for manufacturing parts and products. Essentially, CAM takes information
from a computer generated design—or CAD drawing—to create instructions that control
the movements of an automated tool. These automated tools can include anything from
water jets to mills to plasma cutters.
The primary purpose of CAM is to speed up the production and manufacturing
process. It works side-by-side with CAD software so that you can take designs directly
from CAD and use CAM to produce them. In most cases, all you need to provide are raw
materials and instructions like feed rate, speed and dimension.
The earliest examples of CAM technology lie in NC machines used in the early
1950s. Nowhere near as intuitive or advanced as the machines you’re probably used to
nowadays, these machines used coded instructions on punched paper to control simple
manufacturing instructions. We’ll take a look at how these simple machines developed
into the complex ones we use now—and how CAM evolved in kind.
NC Machines, Helicopters and MIT
The birth of NC is largely credited to John T. Parsons. Working as a machinist for
his father’s company, Parsons began to look for ways to build helicopter rotors. In a bid
to speed up the production process, Parsons began to look towards the idea of using
punched card machines to generate engineering calculations. Working with Frank Sulen,
Parsons developed punched cards that could be programmed to provide automated
machining. These punched cards didn’t gain much traction, however, until 1949 when the
US Air Force arranged funding for Parsons to build his own machine that would surpass
the performance of current NC machines.
In order to further develop his machine, Parsons turned to the Servomechanism
Laboratory at MIT in 1949. With their help, the first NC prototype was developed. In this
time, a system designed to gauge how far controls turn was also developed. The US Air
Force stopped its funding in 1953 due to high expense; however, the project was promptly
resumed by Giddings and Lewis Machine Tool Co
A turning point for the first CNC machine was the production of punch tapes under
computer control by John Runyon of MIT. With it, the time needed to create instructions
and then manufacture the subsequent part was vastly reduced. This success led to the
production of many more CNC machines in the following years. Efforts in later years
were made to push them into the general manufacturing market.
G-Code and Commercialization
In a bid to push interest towards the development of CNC machines, the US Army
bought NC machines and loaned them out to manufacturers. They did this hoping that
once companies got used to the technology, they’d realize how much it increased
productivity, and begin to use them in regular manufacturing processes. As the machines
slowly began to gain traction among large companies, the US Air Force accepted the
proposal to produce a universal programming language for NC.
MIT paved the way for large-scale adoption of CAM with the development of the
first universal programming language in the late 1950s. This language—gradually
becoming the G-code that we’re so familiar with nowadays—was used to generate
coordinates for machined parts automatically. With it, it became possible to control the
exact movements of your machine tools—telling motors where to move, how quickly to
do so and the exact path to follow. The next following years brought about a rise in CNC
technology—replacing older technology like manual machining.
A major turning point for both CAD and CAM was the move from UNIX to PC in
the 1990s—both CAD and CAM became far more accessible to millions of engineers and
general consumers who would have previously been unable to afford the software. As
both became more commercial, companies began to integrate the two. The earliest
commercial applications of CAM lie in the automotive and aerospace industries.
Examples include Pierre Bézier with developing the CAD/CAM
application UNISURF in the late 1960s for card body design and tooling at Renault.
CAM and the Present Day
The evolution of CAM and CAD—more specifically the merging of the two in
recent years—has left the disadvantages of earlier NC machines far in the dust. Modern
CAD/CAM technology has lowered expense, increased accessibility and sped up the
entire design and manufacturing process. Most importantly, CAD and CAM has given
the modern designer far more control over every process. Far removed from the first CNC
prototype, modern CNC machining processes now include:
Laser cutting: works by burning tool paths or designs onto a material
(anything from wood to plastic) using lasers. Interested? Create your own laser-etched
plaque.
Plasma cutting: cuts through electrically conductive materials—usually
metal—by using a plasma torch.
Water jet cutting: blasts a chosen workpiece with a high pressure jet of
water.
Milling: a process that removes material from a piece—like wood—by
feeding a tool directions and angles
One of the most interesting machines that operates using numerical controls
however, has to be the 3D printer. Not considered a CNC machine due to using an
additive process, 3D printers create parts using new material. Recent advances have even
made it possible to 3D print in multicolor. For a better look at the many machines that are
controlled by CAM software, check out CNC machines compared.
The Future of CAM
At this moment in time, CAM and CNC machines are readily available to the entire
maker community. It’s easy enough to purchase CNC starter kits or even build your own
CNC machine. So where exactly will CAM go in the future?
Much like CAD, it’s clear that CAM is going to have to adapt with the times.
Engineers and manufacturers will most definitely be looking for more ways to increase
efficiency, minimize waste and reduce overall energy consumption. As with generative
design in CAD, another hope in the maker community is that soon enough, CAM will be
able to do far more and enable users to do far less. Essentially, machinists and CNC
programmers will be able to take a step back.
With the integration of CAD and CAM, we might also start to see a merging of
roles in industries. The divide between engineers and machinists for example, might
lessen. One thing’s for sure, as CAD/CAM software becomes more intuitive, designing
will become far more advanced. Designs thought to be too difficult to attempt previously
will eventually become child’s play.
