Legacy Code

The Need

One of our hollow metal manufacturing customers came to us with a large library of G-code that they had built up over the years. They had an individual section of G-code for every part they manufactured. To use this library they had what we at DRI call an "island of automation" - an Excel file with macros, that they used as an order form. Their Excel file would piece together the necessary sections of G-code to fullfil an order based on the part numbers and codes that were entered into it. While this system was working for them, it had a number of inherent problems:

There was no "intelligence" or parametric input for any of their part definitions - a new section of G-code had to be written to accomodate any variation in the parts they were manufacturing.
Since they were simply stringing together sections of code sequencialy, there was no way to intelligently nest or optimize the manufacturing processes.
Their system offered no opportunity for error checking and correction.
Their static G-code was machine specfic and would have to be re-written if they chose to purchase new machines.
They did not know how to modernize and optimize their system without loosing the huge volume of work that their G-code library represented.

What We Achieved

We took their existing Excel form and G-code library, and added "intelligence" to it. We infused their system with our own variable language allowing for parametric adjustment of their part definitions. Our systems can actually convert any section of G-code into clean geometry that can then be exported to any machine or CAD program. So, using their existing library of code, we were able to introduce error correction, nesting and machine optimization that saved them hundreds of thousands of dollars in material and running costs alone.