BST (China)

Established in 1998, Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation Ltd. (BST) is located on the seaside city of Qingdao, China.

The company designs and produces high-grade passenger cars, automobile bodies, electric units, luxury double-decker buses, along with high-speed passenger trains and urban transit vehicles.

BST cutting equipment includes Messer plasma tables, Prima and LVD laser cutting equipment. SigmaNEST drives all cutting devices allowing programmers to work in an efficient unified platform.

The past the manufacturer was plagued by a number of common fabrication problems:

• How can material be utilized more completely?
• What is the best nesting software beyond the limited versions that comes with the machines?
• How can design to manufacturing processes be automated to support increased workloads on nesting and fabrication?

SigmaNEST

In 2013 SigmaNEST was integrated. In a relatively short time the following the company had achieved:

• Significant material cost reduction – Material utilization ratio was improved by 3%.
• Improved machine performance – Noticeable gains in laser cut part quality and cutting speed.
• Tighter nests and faster nests — Nesting time was reduced from hours to minutes. Time savings impacted labor costs.
• Custom reporting — SigmaNEST module allowed the customer to customize production operations, capture statistical data for days, weeks, months, years for continuous process improvement.

Measurable Results

One nesting technician commented: “SigmaNEST is very powerful, our previous nesting software did not have nearly as many features. The software’s advanced nesting algorithms deliver measurable improvements in production time and material utilization.”