摘要：全世界有30多个公司开发和销售电脑辅助制造（CAM）软件，这在任何成熟的商业领域中，几乎都是独一无二的，并越来越难以维持下去。在很多人看来早该发生的巩固举措对负责制造工程的人们来说，将是一个很大的影响，包括那些为数控机床编程的人。
　　为什么是现在要求加以巩固呢？因为现在对程序员以及CAM的功能要求都在大幅升级。耗时越来越少的生产运行（需要更多的软件以保持企业的运作） 、越来越多的工程要在更短的时间内得以处理，还有越来越多的样机中断控制工程网版权所有，这些都是压力的来源。全球竞争使得企业获得的利润更低，而且没有留下任何一丝犯错的余地。

　　英文全文如下：

　　CAM benefits, CAM changes
　　By Peter Roost, Planit Holdings Ltd．
　　Worldwide, 30-odd companies are developing and marketing computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. That is almost unique in any mature business—and is increasingly unsustainable. Consolidation, viewed by many as long overdue, is going to have a big impact on the men and women responsible for manufacturing engineering, and who program computer numerically controlled (CNC) machines too.
　　Why now? Demands on programmersCONTROL ENGINEERING China版权所有, and thus on CAM capabilities, are escalating. The pressures include ever-shorter production runs (more programs are needed to keep the business humming), more engineering changes to be dealt with in less time, and more interruptions for prototypes. Global competition has created thinner margins and no leeway for error.
　　On the vendor side控制工程网版权所有, complex and pricey new machine tools are putting new demands on programmers and CAM. The development of a two types of CAM vendors—those that have tight digital links to solid modelers for machining from the solid, and those that don’t—is producing added pressure. Solid modeling has driven two-dimensional and wireframe computer-aided design (CAD) almost completely out of design and engineering.
　　The coming consolidation will be led by large CAM vendors with global reachwww.cechina.cn, by developers of solid-modeling systems and by product lifecycle management (PLM) software companies. It will make a transition to CAM easier for userswww.cechina.cn, because the surviving CAM companies will realize, as Planit has, that the basis of competition is shifting strongly toward customer service.
　　But CAM users and customers have a role to play too. All demand a broad portfolio of products from a single supplier