User report "Carstengerdes Modellbau & Zerspanung" from Bockhorn

Carstengerdes Modellbau & Zerspanung GmbH is located in a place where you wouldn’t expect it – right on the dyke, to be precise. In an idyllic vacation setting in Bockhorn on the Jade Bay, the company has been successfully manufacturing products for a wide variety of areas of life for 35 years.

If the northern Germans are said to be a certain coolness and distance, you will be proven wrong when you visit: a warm welcome and uncomplicated interaction make you feel welcome. During the tour you experience a great atmosphere, here you don’t just call yourself a family business, here you live it.

This is probably also due to the fact that there has been no problem with the shortage of skilled workers so far. The employee with the longest service record has been with the company for 32 years and has witnessed the impressive development almost from the beginning to the present day. Another building block is the training of new skilled workers: great importance is attached to passing on knowledge to young people. Cutting machine operators and technical model makers are currently being trained. The company is also open to trainees, as some have ended up in the company this way.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the famous “thinking outside the box”: there are even employees who return after a period in other companies and are happy to be hired again. Here we know what we have in common. Currently, 50 employees work in three modern production halls covering an area of around 3,500 m². The company works a two-shift system, but the late shift only works from Monday to Thursday, as they “don’t want anyone to have to start their shift on a Friday afternoon”.

“We are proud of our employees and see ourselves as a team. The interaction between the individual departments and employees, some of whom have been with us for several decades, makes us a reliable partner. Our employees are our best advertisement and everyone is important in their position,” the two managing directors agree.

Carstengerdes Modellbau & Zerspanung GmbH offers its customers a complete package: contract machining for the individual and series production of a wide range of materials, tool and mold making, foundry model making, paste-up and plastic part production. Naturally, the company also offers service and expertise in the areas of design and programming. The experts are also often happy to help with the development and/or further development of products.

Of course, in addition to the employees, well-equipped, modern machinery is also crucial. Here, the company can meet many requirements with its various machines. Machining dimensions of up to 7 x 4 m in one piece is no problem for the North German professionals. As you walk through the production halls, you will come across several DMUs in the 5-axis machining center area as well as the huge EiMa Gamma L, a Wemas VZP 5A 3200, a CMS MX 5 and a Homag BMG 511 for woodworking. There are 3-axis machining centers from DMG, Wemas, DMC and Mikron as well as lathes and a DMG turn-mill center. There is also a pasting system for models and molds, which makes the finished product even more durable and reliable.

Of course, the CAD/CAM system is also crucial for commercial success. The company has been relying on Mastercam since 1999. The world’s No. 1 CAD/CAM system offers many advantages that the company appreciates: as the company is characterized by its wide range of products and the associated expertise, it needs software “that is universal and uncomplicated,” explains senior partner Herbert Carstengerdes. The company is still confident that it has the right product in-house with Mastercam. It is important for the entrepreneurs that Mastercam users work on every shift, so that any necessary changes can be made directly. Markus Niggemann from WDS Software GmbH, Mastercam sales partner from Pulheim, adds: “It is important here that employees are up to date and can use Mastercam optimally for the respective application. Our regular training courses make a major contribution to this.”

Mastercam Mill-Turn, a mill-turn module that meets the precise requirements of these complex universal lathes and enables safe and efficient work, is also used. In close coordination with the WDS technicians, the job setups and post-processors are precisely matched to the respective machine. This means that the programming effort can be reduced to a minimum.

The simulation module in Mastercam Mill-Turn offers the company further potential savings: collisions can be reliably ruled out. The detailed mapping of the respective machine in a virtual environment ensures an extremely realistic representation of the entire production process. Users can precisely identify existing optimization potential in advance and perfect the process. The employees at Carstengerdes have learned to appreciate these possibilities of “foresight”.

Markus Niggemann praises the open interaction: “If there are any problems or suggestions for improvement, we talk about them and try to find a solution – which we usually succeed in doing. Only through feedback like this can we contribute to making Mastercam practice-oriented.” Hendrik Carstengerdes is also pleased with the good cooperation: “It’s good to know that you’re being taken seriously. Of course we have looked left and right, but we simply know what we have in Mastercam and in our partner, WDS.”

A tour of the plant shows just how diverse the portfolio is: Wind tunnel models are produced in the first hall, housings for use in the defense industry in the second and shower trays for a well-known German manufacturer in the third. In the plastics processing area, submarine fairings can be found alongside parts for wind turbines. Tools for the food industry and insulating panels for electric cars are also produced here.

During the tour, an interesting workpiece catches the eye on one of the large milling machines: the door of a yacht. This unusual project is currently taking up three working days a week. Just how complex the processing is can be seen in the time required: the “plain” side takes just ten minutes, while processing the other side takes around 10 hours. Of course, Mastercam is also used here: while the first side is simple to program and edit, the more complex side benefits from the intuitive yet versatile CAD/CAM software with its flexible tool paths.

As the company is extremely broad-based and flexible, its customers include a wide variety of industries. This offers a certain degree of planning security and at the same time a varied workplace.

This is also demonstrated by a look at the design department: together with the customer, optimum solutions are devised, existing products are further developed and adapted to market requirements.

Info WDS:
WDS Software & Service GmbH has been a Mastercam dealer from the very beginning and has been at home in the CAD/CAM industry since 1990. Customers are served throughout Germany, but also in Benelux and Austria. WDS Software & Service GmbH has been part of the GNT Systems Group since last year.

In recent years, WDS has increasingly developed into a “problem solver” as customer requirements become more specific and individual. Increasingly, it is no longer just a question of good CAM software, but also of the entire production process, whereby the interface to the machines is of particular importance. This is the core competence of WDS – post-processor creation. This interface between CAM software and machine control is programmed by WDS itself and enables individual customer wishes and requirements to be taken into account. Furthermore, WDS also offers the programming of special solutions through its own software development.

WDS’s technical support is characterized by its proximity to the workshop: The affiliated manufacturing company, TECH-KO Zerspanungstechnologie GmbH, also serves WDS as a demonstration and research & development center. For example, the results of technology tests can be used in training courses and various “insider tips” can be passed on.

It goes without saying that our employees have excellent know-how from years of practical experience in the field of production technologies.

(c) InterCAM-Germany, Author: Birgit Wagner