NUM at EMO - The World of Metalworking, Hannover 19-24 September 2011, Stand C25

Those 50 years started with the development of the first numerical controller by mother-company Telemecanique in 1961. The first NUM-branded NC controller was launched in 1964, and NUM itself was spun-out as a separate company in 1978. Innovation after innovation has followed, from hardware breakthroughs such as the world's first 16-bit CNC controller in 1983 and the first all-digital servo drive featuring digital current control in 1991, to groundbreaking software such as the first support for rotation tool centre point (RTCP) in 1986 and the launch of the pioneering NUMROTO tool grinding software package in 1987.

A technological highlight of current times is NUM's ultra-powerful CNC kernel, Flexium. This provides open programmability for easy customisation, together with an exceptional scalability that can be applied economically to control machinery ranging from the small and simple to the most complex - with more than 200 interpolating axes. NUM has customers in the rotary transfer machine market who often need to control more than 100 axes for example, and in one application the control requirement is in excess of 140 axes!

NUM is as keen to emphasise its people as its CNC technology, and its partnership ethos is the backbone of the company's business philosophy. As a result, for large numbers of specialist and small-to-medium sized machine tool builders, NUM technical support is an intrinsic part of their technical edge in their markets. NUM is also renowned for its work in specialised machinery segments including tool grinding, woodworking, gear cutting and rotary transfer, where it holds leading positions.

Perhaps the clearest difference between NUM and other CNC players is its ability and willingness to customise. NUM's open CNC systems - and a decentralised R&D structure which locates engineering staff all round the world - allows it to customise CNC software for specific machine tool builders, even for a handful of machines or a one-off special.

We have the complete range of CNC technology including controllers, drives and motors, and our business is 100% CNC, says Peter von Rueti, CEO of NUM. Effectively, our staff become a part of the machine builder's own R&D, and that's how we help to give a machine tool builder a unique competitive advantage.

This technical partnership approach also means that NUM also receives clear signals about the control technology demands and challenges in the machine tool business, feeding its core R&D program.

Among the technical trends that NUM is currently seeing in the CNC sector is an emphasis on energy efficiency, with more use of drive systems with a shared DC bus for recovery of power. The use of direct drive configurations is also increasing in the push for higher performance and quality. This approach, along with other techniques such as drives with anti-resonance capability, is featuring in a growing number of machine builder strategies for maintaining precision while saving on the scale of the machine's underlying metal-based framework and rigidity.

A longer term trend that NUM sees is some movement away from the G-code programming language and towards more direct linkages between CAD and CNC control. A more direct path from design to manufacture is something that NUM has already pioneered for more than 20 years with its NUMROTO software for tool grinding machinery. This package features an integrated modelling-simulation-interpolation chain that provides a true WYSIWYG output. It avoids today's sequential CAD-to-CAM and CAM-to-CNC translation stages with data format changes, emulations etc, which almost invariably have to be followed by an optimisation phase before a part is able to enter production.

Some 25-30% of our staff are technical and engaged on development, applications and support tasks, adds Jan Koch, Chief Sales Officer of NUM. Continuing to make technical CNC innovation a core element of the business success of small to medium sized machine tool makers is where we see NUM's role over the next 50 years.