Burlington, ON, Canada, December 17, 2019 - Forming Technologies Inc. (FTI) the industry’s leading developer of solutions for design, simulation, planning and costing of sheet metal components, today announced the worldwide release of FormingSuite 2019. Designed for sheet metal cost estimators, design engineers, tooling designers, and advanced planning engineers in the automotive, aerospace, consumer product and electronics industries, FormingSuite 2019 delivers new customer-driven features for costing/estimating parts, developing method plans, and formability simulation.
FormingSuite’s ability to provide extensive valuable information on many topics including formability, material cost, tooling cost, springback, etc. has led to the introduction of a new, comprehensive reporting system that automatically generates a single report summarizing an entire project in either Excel or PowerPoint format.
Demand for utilizing FTI expertise in quoting and estimating tooling for sheet metal components has resulted in powerful enhancements and functionalities to COSTOPTIMIZER Professional (COP). COP’s ProcessPlanner solution brings the tooling and manufacturing method planning activities to the lead position in the industry by addressing critical customer challenges. To provide the flexibility needed by the global automotive marketplace, ProcessPlanner now supports regional settings to customize both die sizing and costing. Advancements such as improved die load for flanging operations, die estimation parameters for tandem process and user defined shut height settings for each die in tandem lineup are amongst a multitude of new features. FormingSuite 2019 also improves stamping feature recognition, process generation, process validation, simplifies process editing and produces better-quality reports.
FormingSuite 2019 brings advances in material cost modeling as this release introduces users to a new, easier and more flexible method for creating and editing variable addendum on blank shapes by interactively morphing (dragging) curves. Focus has been on improving support for DFM and KPR studies with customizable results ranges for numerical results (major, minor, thickness strains, safety margin) to address organizational standards for formability as well as improved reporting which include springback results. Cost Optimization layout editing adds support for cropping two different parts during optimization. A powerful new Progressive Nesting Web Simulation solver has also been introduced to provide engineers fast and accurate simulation to understand the impact of web design on the cost and method plan.
FASTIncremental users can now import scanned data to replace tooling meshes and now have more precise controls for timing of tools and cams. Materials can be defined with full anisotropic (plastic strain ratio) accounting for the rolling direction of the sheet material with r0 (parallel), r45 (diagonal) and r90 (transverse) as determined through material testing. Large organizations can now use FASTIncremental with a networked LS-DYNA solver.
“FormingSuite 2019 marks a major step forward for FTI in terms of power, flexibility and accuracy,” says Derek Peeling, VP Engineering at Forming Technologies. “We have listened to our customers and introduced many new features and enhancements to address the needs of the global metalforming industry.”
About Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence helps industrial manufacturers develop the disruptive technologies of today and the life-changing products of tomorrow. As a leading metrology and manufacturing solution specialist, our expertise in sensing, thinking and acting- the collection, analysis and active use of measurement data- gives our customers the confidence to increase production speed and accelerate productivity while enhancing product quality.
Through a network of local service centres, production facilities and commercial operations across five continents we are shaping smart change in manufacturing to build a world where quality drives productivity. For more information, visit HexagonMI.com.
Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence is part of Hexagon (Nasdaq Stockholm: HEXA B) a leading global provider of information technologies that drive productivity and quality across geospatial and industrial enterprise applications.
About Forming Technologies Inc.
Forming Technologies Incorporated, a division of Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, is the world’s leading developer of computer aided engineering software for design and simulation of sheet metal components. Since 1989, FTI has provided OEMs and suppliers in the automotive, aerospace and appliance industries with innovative software and training solutions designed to reduce development time and material costs. FTI has trained over 12,000 engineers in Formability and Die Design and is considered the Best in Class around the world for their industry training programs.
For more information on Forming Technologies Inc., please visit the company website at
