Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1319500
80 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2020 Article by Pete Starkey I-CONNECT007 I have known the Ucamco people for over 30 years and recognise their company as an indus- try-leading provider of PCB CAM and pre-CAM software, as well as laser photoplotters and di- rect imaging systems. The team has always en- deavoured to understand customer needs—of- ten to anticipate them—and to respond with innovative solutions. At the 2019 productronica exhibition in Mu- nich last November, in a conversation with Ucamco managing director Karel Tavernier, I learned about a new concept in front-end soft- ware: iamcam, with "iam" standing for in- telligence-aided manufacturing. Later, at this year's IPC APEX EXPO, I had the opportunity to speak with Luc Maesen, director of Ucam- co USA, and learn a little more about an auto- mated workflow system using artificial intelli- gence on top of Ucamco's automation engine to do the same for CAM as had been done for pre-CAM with Integr8tor software. In the words of Tavernier, "The main goal is to take the drudgery out of CAM work. For stan- dard boards, there's no reason why the CAM process can't be done completely automatical- ly." Maesen commented, "We don't necessar- ily see it as a replacement of every CAM op- erator, but the vast majority of the work can be done by this fully-automated programme, which allows your experts to concentrate on the ones where you really need to pay atten- tion because they have special requirements." When it was announced that there would be a webinar to describe the details of iamcam, I immediately signed up. The event was profes- sionally presented by Ucamco applications en- gineers. Adam Newington provided the com- mentary, Denis Morin drove the live demon- stration, and Sylvia Liemer responded to ques- tions from the audience. Newington introduced iamcam as a new, au- tomated PCB front-end workflow, designed to overcome the challenges faced daily by typical PCB fabricators of tooling-up many low-add- ed-value standard jobs with manual CAM—ex- pensive, time-consuming, and with potential- ly inconsistent quality. It offers a client/serv- er solution for off-loading routine PCB CAM data preparation, reducing front-end process- Ucamco Webinar Explores Benefits of Front-End Automation Tool