VUE 2026: Stoneswood Precision Components Shows How Simulation Drives Machining Innovation

The Vericut Users' Exchange (VUE) returned to the UK in September 2026, drawing around 60 attendees to the Silverstone Museum, adjacent to the Silverstone Formula 1 Circuit. The day combined technical presentations, live demonstrations, and peer knowledge sharing — and the standout session came from a customer pushing simulation well past its conventional role.

Beyond collision checking

Gavin Powell, Managing Director of Vericut UK, welcomed delegates before Gavin Bridger, Applications Engineering Manager, opened the technical programme with an interactive session on Vericut 9.6, 9.7 and beyond. Attendees voted on whether presented capabilities were current features, future developments, or fiction. Many were surprised to learn that Vericut Assistant, bidirectional connectivity with Siemens' Run MyVirtual Machine (RMVM) digital-twin platform, and verified coolant usage per tool are already available.

Future developments discussed included data management for Siemens' Teamcenter PLM platform, an embedded Mastercam interface, and a direct Vericut connection to the CNC machine.

The Stoneswood workflow

The keynote came from Tom Whitbread, Technical Engineer at Stoneswood Precision Components, a Cheshire-based aerostructures specialist and part of Hyde Aero Products. Stoneswood's workflow starts in hyperMILL CAM software, with Icam handling post-processing before Vericut independently verifies the NC code.

"We want to show how we're using Vericut for more than simply checking whether a toolpath is going to collide."

Stoneswood builds its Vericut sessions using the same documentation issued to shop-floor operators — fixture selection, work offsets, tooling assemblies, and machine configuration are all checked against the set-up sheet. Discrepancies get investigated before the job reaches the machine. The company also feeds Vericut's cycle-time estimates back to its planning department to inform scheduling and capacity decisions.

When a mill becomes a lathe

The most striking example was interpolation turning on Stoneswood's DMGMORI machining centres — producing turned features through coordinated machine movement rather than transferring the part to a lathe. Using hyperMILL's general turning functionality and bespoke Icam post-processing logic built around DMGMORI's CYCLE806, Stoneswood developed a Vericut environment that accurately reproduces the process.

"It's one thing to know that the machine can perform a particular function. It's another to make sure we can program it, post-process it and independently verify what the machine's going to do before we press start."

Whitbread also described machining a component approximately 2.3 m long within a working envelope of around 1.6 m, achieved by controlling table rotations through bespoke post-processing — with Vericut independently confirming the result was safe.

"That's the real outcome for us. We haven't just made interpolation turning possible on the machine; we've brought it into a process where we can understand and prove the behaviour before manufacturing begins."

The afternoon included a demonstration of the latest Icam Post V27, featuring AI-powered assistance, regression testing, and enhanced debugging tools, before round tables closed the event.