Delcam hosts China Aerospace Working Group

The delegation was in the UK for a meeting of the UK/China Aviation Working Group. It comprised senior government officials from the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and a commercial delegation that included representatives from major Chinese aerospace manufacturers, COMAC and AVIC, and trade bodies such as the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, and the China Aviation Industrial Base.

The UK/China Aviation Working Group was established in 2005 to encourage collaboration between the aerospace industries in the two countries. In addition to Delcam, representatives from Airbus, Bombardier, Rolls Royce and GKN attended the Working Group meeting in Bristol, hosted by GKN, as well as representatives from UK Trade & Investment and the UK aerospace trade association, A|D|S.

The visit comes at a time when Delcam is seeing much greater demand for its manufacturing and inspection software from the aerospace sector, not just in China but in most of the industry’s main centres. In the latest market survey into machining software by US analysts CIMdata, Delcam was ranked as the third largest supplier to the aerospace industry, an especially pleasing result as this was a sector where the company had little market share as recently as five years ago.

The increased popularity of Delcam software is partly due to the new emphasis on efficiency and productivity in companies that previously would have simply used the CAM system that came with their choice of CAD software according to Delcam Marketing Manager, Peter Dickin.  "With the level of global competition now increasing, those companies are looking at their choice of CAM system much more carefully,” claimed Mr. Dickin.  "This closer examination often shows that Delcam’s software can give significant savings, both in programming times and in machining times, as well as improving the quality of the finished part.”

The increased sales into the aerospace industry are part of a general diversification within Delcam’s business, from its origins in the mould and die industry into many other areas of manufacturing.  Within China, this has reinforced the company’s strong growth so that it now has more than 1,500 customers in the country.