Software to let your machine tools communicate. Every machine shop manager's basic goal is to produce good parts as efficiently as possible. One product that can help you achieve this is a DNC system. DNC is defined as either Direct Numeric Control, direct control of your machine from a PC, or Distributed Numeric Control, a system that will distribute data to your machines.
Most machine shops use some form of networking to control machine tools.
Many of these systems have old technology, in both equipment and software, and can no longer be supported nor upgraded. However, these systems offer DNC capability, as limited and antiquated as it may be. The answer depends on your particular shop goals. A DNC system can eliminate the manual transcription of NC data, downtime due to shop floor entry and corrections, walking from the CNC to the programmer for a new set of programs and, finally, walking to a PC to get a program. With a DNC network in place there is no more wheeling around a computer, finding a communication device or manually flipping switches on a switchbox.