Introduction - By Mr.
ISHWAR NAGWANI of AutoDesk India
E-mail: ishwar.nagwani@autodesk.com
Today I will explain how production techniques
developed in fields quite different from goldsmithing can be adapted
perfectly to jewellery manufacture. In this presentation, the following
topics are discussed:
At the threshold of the new century, technology
can offer substantial support to all the activities of the goldsmith.
Particularly in recent years, much research work has been carried
out in the field of jewellery production and new-sophisticated technology
for jewellery manufacturing has been developed. Unhappily, the goldsmith
does not always readily accept new technology. To give an example,
investment casting was introduced in the late 1940s, but it was
not accepted by the industry until the late fifties. Ten years elapsed
before it was used in factories.
Consequently, in spite of active research work
for end product quality improvement, there are some production steps
that seem unaffected by the lapse of time. In particular, there
is a step in the production process where, even today, the goldsmith
is still unwilling to accept new technology. This step is design
or, more precisely, the intercommunication between the designer
and the goldsmith - that is, between creativity and practical realization.
It has always been believed that a compromise between aesthetic
and production technology requirements is difficult to reach, but
this has not actually been true for a long while, a statement proved
by many examples of industrial design, such as Pininfarina design
for the automotive industry. These demonstrate how creativity and
imagination can perfectly be harmonized with computer calculations.
The instrument enabling this small miracle is named CAD/CAM. These
acronyms denote all systems that assist design (CAD
= Computer Aided Design) and manufacturing (CAM
= Computer Aided Manufacturing) through a computer. |
