CAM Quality | CAM Software Requirements

Keep CAM software quality in mind

Gibbs, Bill

QUALITY SCAN

The only acceptable level of bugs in software is no bugs

In today's CAM market, buyers are increasingly overwhelmed by lists of application features full of industry buzzwords, which for the most part can only be understood, differentiated or even appreciated by CAM experts. At the same time, competition, and a maturing technology, has turned these feature lists more into a "you say toe-MAY-toe, I say toe-MAH-toe" situation than ever before. To top it off, in an attempt to differentiate their product from the alternatives out there, CAM vendors stress some of these points as if one feature should have a tie-breaking bearing on the customers' purchase decision. For the most part, it just isn't so-at least not with the features that most vendors would offer up as definitive.

But one feature, I suggest, should be first and foremost in every CAM buyer's mind as they shortlist their choice of a system that will ultimately influence their company's manufacturing productivity and efficiency. It's actually a pretty universal aspect that you can, and should, measure before making that final commitment to a particular CAM system. What I'm referring to here is software quality.

There are many different aspects to software quality. Probably the most widely accepted measure of software quality is how bug-free the software is. CAM vendors often claim that software quality is an ever-elusive characteristic of any software application. That if you write code, you can rest assured you're going to create bugs. That might be the case, but tell it to your boss when your job is late because of some bug in the software that naturally should be expected to exist, because after all, doesn't all software have bugs?

No, from a user's perspective the only acceptable level of bugs in software is no bugs. At the same time, creating bug-free software is not an easy thing to do. By its very nature, CAM software is (numerically) complex, which introduces lots of opportunities for software bugs to creep into the code. To create robust software, the software developer must be forever diligent in their efforts to detect, diagnose, and destroy-- the 3D's of software quality-flaws in their products. Continually striving for nothing less than bug-free code, rather than accepting bugs as a natural part of writing software, can make a difference.

But software quality doesn't stop with the system's basic functionality. How useable that functionality is represents an extremely important factor in software quality. You could have the most powerful CAM system in the world, but if you can't productively use that power, what do you have? Ease-of-use has become a very popular "check-the-box" claim with many vendors today, because they know it's a very important quality factor. But how many actually live up to those claims; how many do more than just adopt the term "ease-of-use," rather than designing their system to be easy to use? Spend the time to look at what it takes to use the system; how efficient is it, how intuitive or natural is its interface? Can the system adapt to the way you do things, or do you have to adapt to how it does things? Because you're going to be using your CAM system for a very long time, it's extremely important that you consider how easy it will be for your users to employ the software to do the type of work that your company does.

In a similar way, ease-of-learning, or how easy will it be for your users to learn how to effectively use your CAM system, is another important aspect of software quality. Again, you could have the most powerful CAM system in the world, but if you can't learn how to use it you'll never realize a fraction of what it's capable of accomplishing. And there's a big difference between a system that just makes a "check-the-box" claim versus one that has been designed to be intuitive and natural, and ultimately easy to learn by the user.

So, when it comes to comparing feature lists when buying CAM software, remember that differences in functionality are often fleeting-what one vendor offers today is often leapfrogged by what another vendor offers tomorrow. But a vendor's commitment and ability to deliver a CAM system with an excellent level of software quality is something that rises above the rest of the stuff on feature lists.

Bill Gibbs

Founder, President, and CEO Gibbs and Associates Moorpark, CA

Copyright Society of Manufacturing Engineers Jan 2003
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