Lantek presents its innovations at the Schweißen & Schneiden Exhibition in Essen (Germany)

Lantek, a leading multinational company in the digital transformation of sheet metal and metalworking, will present the features of its 2023 software update for sheet metal working at Schweißen & Schneiden 2023 from Monday 11 September. The focus will be on innovations in the Lantek Expert and Lantek Flex3D cutting modules.

"With the Lantek V43 software update, we can even better support our customers in digitising their manufacturing processes, giving them agility, efficiency and control over their workflows, while helping to ensure their long-term sustainability," says Christoph Lenhard, head of Lantek’s German office, which is also responsible for Austria and Switzerland. "By supporting new advanced machining strategies, our customers can get the most out of their machines and further optimise their part machining quality, process reliability and material utilisation."

The software update provides intelligent automatic tools for offline programming, helping users to achieve optimal results faster in different scenarios. The new options in Lantek Expert are aimed at increasing the flexibility of the production chain, speeding up processesand programming nesting in the shortest possible time. The new features of the Lantek Flex3D software focus on maximising efficiency, both in the programming and in the cutting processes of the machines.

Greater flexibility and automatic shape recognition in Lantek Expert

Unexpected events such as machine stoppages or capacity overloads often require quick reactions in the CAD/CAM office: new nestings have to be created for a machine that was not included in the original design. Thanks to new options in Lantek Expert, it is now possible to quickly move a group of nestings from one machine to another. The user can decide whether to keep the original nesting characteristics or to automatically create the technology (gates, micro-joints, cutting qualities, etc.), machining and CNC for the new machine. The system then automatically reassigns all technology and machining based on the new machine specifications.

It is also often necessary to cut large quantities of parts with similar shapes. With its new tool for similar shapes, the new version of Lantek Expert streamlines the manual creation of technology and machining by eliminating the need for repeated manual adjustments: when the user manually or semi-automatically assigns gates, micro-joints, marking techniques and cut quality to a contour, the system automatically transfers this information to all similar contours in all parts and all nests.

For punching, especially when special tools are used, Lantek Expert now includes new special punching technologies: they allow a high degree of automation of the entire process, from the import of the drawing to the CNC generation, so that the CAD designer can specify the special tools to be used for each part.

Better material utilisation with Lantek Flex3D

One of the main objectives of the Lantek Flex3D update is to improve productivity by finding ways to reduce/eliminate machine downtime, for example by minimising cutting head collisions through a brand new automatic generation of micro-joints.

Lantek Flex3D also improves material efficiency with new nesting algorithms. However, sometimes a good layout is not enough due to the physical characteristics (fixtures and chucks) of some specific machines. For these scenarios, the software can approach the zero waste concept with a new machining strategy.

Lenhard: "We are looking forward to presenting Lantek there again, six years after the last Schweißen & Schneiden, and to showing the industry the new functions of our software update for sheet metal production and tube and profile machining.”