Challenge
Most of the shop's work is 2D: plates, brackets, manifolds, fixture details. But every quote and every program went through two desktop CAM seats, so simple jobs queued behind complex ones and quoting stalled when programmers were busy.
Solution
The shop adopted solidSF for the 2D pipeline: import the customer STEP, set stock and WCS, run facing, pocketing, contouring, drilling, and adaptive 2D paths with toolpath preview and stock simulation, then post to Haas or Fanuc.
Because it runs in a browser, the quoting estimator and both programmers work in parallel on whatever machine is free, including the laptop at the front desk.
“Quoting used to wait for whoever had the CAM seat free. Now anyone opens the STEP file in a tab, sets up stock, and has toolpath estimates before lunch.”
Shop manager
Results
About 70 percent of incoming jobs never touch a desktop seat. Quotes on customer STEP files go out the same day, and the desktop seats are reserved for five-axis and complex 3D work.
Setup sheets and per-op drawings come from the same document as the toolpaths, so the floor stops working from stale prints.