• What is CAD/CAM?
• What opportunities this new technology can offer to jewellery factories?
• When use of CAD/CAM can be profitable?

Obtaining the best from CAD/CAM:
Firstly, a project should be defined that enables planning of the different steps required for making a model. Lack of planning often leads to full or partial remaking of the model, because some production problems have not been taken into account; for example, a bracelet with a poorly limbering hinge, or a clasp that does not stay closed, and other problems that every goldsmith normally meets during his everyday work.

Design requires a sequence of choices and brings two different worlds into contact - the world of creativity and the world of production. These worlds should integrate to achieve a common objective: aesthetic and technical high quality of the end product. The problem is to get agreement between the ideas of the designer and the rules of the design. It requires overcoming distrust and language, educational and cultural differences.

It should be realized that using a computer doesn’t mean it will make the company’s production dull or banal. The opposite is true: where creative effort and care for high product quality are more vigorous, there are more possibilities to get the best results from these new technologies.

Another problem of CAD/CAM design stems from the fact that the development of these systems has always been bound to the requirements of big companies.

Consequently, very sophisticated software has been developed and put on the market. This software is often
over-sized when the needs of the average jewellery producer are considered. The company intending to use these techniques should, firstly, be able to select the technology that best fits its needs. As stated earlier, a wrong choice can effectively make the new machines useless. This causes not only a remarkable loss of money, but also a strategic setback in comparison to competing companies that have been able to make a better implementation of new technology.

In addition, an analysis should be carried out within the company aimed at evaluating the production capability, problem areas and workforce skills. It is important that any changes in company organization and management arising from the implementation of such new technology should be fully explained. In conclusion, there is no single way to introduce CAD/CAM technology into a company, and, principally, there are no prepackaged systems that can be purchased to overcome all the problems. The route to be covered is formed by a set of strategies that concern the organization, management and programming of the whole company. Technology should be considered as an instrument that can make this change easier, but it cannot be a solution for all problems. The company believing all its problems to be solved because it uses advanced technology is wrong: it will only succeed in computerized chaos!

CAD/CAM systems should be run by expert operators who know the jewellery manufacturing process very well as well as the utilization of computers. For this reason, in recent years new types of professional are emerging, who are able to introduce the new technologies into the factory.

In this way, a company is not obliged to make large investments to put together people and machines able to carry out the production operations described above.

At this point, I already know the question that rises in your mind:

What if the service company I entrust with my designs decides to “clone” my models and offer them to a competitor?

There is only one answer: THAT SERVICE COMPANY WILL SHUT DOWN!

Any service company must keep all projects strictly confidential if it wishes to continue in business; not doing so is not only morally censurable, but is also injurious to its business. Serious service companies have generally already begun to take the measures required to guarantee confidentiality and secrecy of past and future work. In other fields, these technologies have been used for many years.

Today, no product is produced, be it a car, an electrical household appliance or a piece of furniture that has not been designed on a computer and scrutinized in its aesthetic and technical aspects. In my opinion, in the near future this will occur in the field of jewellery, to satisfy the quality standards the market has required for some time.

One of the most commonly used jewelry designing software is JewelCAD, one can download 90 day evaluation copy from:

http://www.jcadcam.com/download/jewelcad_evaluation_504.exe