Open day to reveal Fastool progress

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Jul 22, 2003

An open day in High Wycombe will provide an opportunity for toolmakers to discuss the latest developments in automation and the progress of the European funded Fastool project.

On Tuesday 29th July representatives from the DTI, GTMA and the Centre for Rapid Design and Manufacturing (CRDM) at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, will present an Open Day in High Wycombe to provide an opportunity for toolmakers to discuss the latest developments in automation and the progress of the European funded Fastool project, which aims to cut mould tooling throughput times by half.

Julia Moore, GTMA Director, explains the objective of the event: "Now that the first six months of this three-year project have been completed we are keen to continue our dialogue with toolmakers about their technical problems and the developments they would most like to see, in order to ensure that the project will deliver the solutions that our industry needs.

We all know that automation is key to competitiveness.

The goal of the Fastool project is to provide UK SMEs with practical methods of achieving automation in their own tool rooms".

The event will provide an interactive forum, where information can be exchanged between industry participants and academia.

Steve Hobbs, Development Director of Delcam, will be presenting the development of CAM software for the Fastool project while David Gibbs, Managing Director of System 3R, will be detailing the benefits of manufacturing automation and explaining how this is being achieved.

The GTMA co-ordinator of the Fastool project, Dr David Jacobson, will be describing the objectives and tasks of the work programme and there will also be a tour of the fully equipped CRDM tool room, which includes one of only two EOS DMLS (direct metal laser sintering) machines.

The GTMA has invited DTI Materials and Engineering Sector Unit Director, Simon Edmonds, to open the event, presenting the Government's view and to hear first-hand the view of UK toolmakers.