JETCAM International s.a.r.l. today announced a technology partnership with laser projection company Assembly Guidance. The move is aimed at providing mutual customers with an integrated, seamless solution from the company's CrossTrack composite manufacturing software.

Working with Assembly Guidance, JETCAM has developed native support for the company's KitGuide ply identification laser projection systems within CrossTrack. As the highly optimised NC code of the nest is sent to the CNC knife cutter Crosstrack also instructs the Assembly Guidance system with information on the location and kitting order for each ply. Label information can also be passed, allowing the operator to apply labels printed from a handheld printer during the unloading process. Plies can also be verified using Assembly Guidance's Projector Vision to ensure that the correct ply is unloaded. This is not only much faster than traditional methods – often 300% faster - but it also removes the possibility for error.

Said Martin Bailey, General Manager of JETCAM; “Although many companies in industries such as aerospace and automotive are benefiting from savings in material, staff time and machine runtime delivered by JETCAM, many of these savings are being offset by the time needed to kit plies for layup. We know the ply location on the nest and its layup sequence, so it is a natural progression to pass this automatically to a system such as Assembly Guidance.”

Scott Blake, President of Assembly Guidance added; “JETCAM's CrossTrack with KitGuide support brings our customers the benefits of seamless, end-to-end process optimization. Combining these systems ensures that optimized material utilization is accompanied by the lowest cycle times and error rates for each part.”

CrossTrack provides complete traceability of material, material life, plies, kits, orders and nests – from the freezer through to bonding, and all in real time. All CrossTrack 3.0 systems will include the ability to pass information to Assembly Guidance systems. The update is free to all customers with a current maintenance contract.