Willis Custom Yachts, based in Stuart, Florida, crafts bespoke luxury sportfishing yachts, blending traditional artistry with advanced digital manufacturing. They specialize in high-performance vessels, maintaining tolerances as tight as 0.008 inches across complex components with highly curved surfaces.

Faced with the unique challenge of producing one-of-a-kind vessels with sweeping curvatures and frequent customer-driven changes, Willis needed a unified CAD-to-CAM workflow to power their in-house CNC manufacturing processes. Their previous siloed software environment led to costly translation gaps and rework. As Bill White, Chief Financial Officer at Willis Custom Yachts, explains, “Being in the custom sport fish boat building, nothing is repetitive. Everything is custom for us. We need to be able to adapt things very fast and on the go.”

They found their answer in Siemens NX CAD/CAM software. By integrating design and manufacturing into a single, continuous digital environment, Willis Custom Yachts achieved a remarkable transformation.

Willis Custom Yachts needed to eliminate rework, reduce scheduling uncertainty, and build a digital thread from design all the way through production. By implementing Siemens NX CAD/CAM, they unified engineering and manufacturing in a single environment. This not only closed translation gaps, but it also helped them perform machining simulations accurate enough to run unattended manufacturing with confidence.

Dominic Beaulieu, CAD Engineer at Willis Custom Yachts, highlights this, stating, “One great thing about NX is, is the fact that it’s parametric. Once you update a part, it will automatically update the assembly, and it will update the CAM file.” This associativity eliminates manual intervention and ensures manufacturing always works from the latest design intent.

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