Saumil Patel Named Finalist for ACMA ACE Award in Manufacturing & Tooling Innovation

Saumil Patel, P.Eng., has been named a finalist in the Manufacturing & Tooling Innovation category of the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA) Awards for Composites Excellence (ACE) for his work on automating layer preparation in composite tooling workflows. The innovation addresses a longstanding production bottleneck in layered mold manufacturing and demonstrates how workflow automation can significantly improve efficiency, consistency and scalability for custom composite tooling production.

Advancing Composite Tooling Through Automation

Layered tooling is widely used to manufacture molds for complex architectural composite applications, including GRG, FRP and GFRC components. While the approach provides a cost-effective method for producing customized geometries, preparing sliced tooling layers for nesting and CNC machining has traditionally required repetitive manual operations that increase with mold complexity and layer count.

To address this challenge, Mr. Patel developed a rule-based CAM automation workflow that transforms a labor-intensive preparation process into a single automated operation. Implemented as a custom software utility within the CAM environment, the system automatically groups, separates and organizes sliced tooling layers using user-defined parameters, eliminating hundreds of repetitive manual interactions.

The workflow reduces preparation time from approximately 10 seconds per layer to less than 10 seconds per mold, regardless of layer count or geometric complexity. Automated indexing and labeling further improve traceability throughout machining, assembly and quality control processes.

As composites manufacturing continues to demand greater customization and production efficiency, digital workflows that formalize and automate repetitive operations play an increasingly important role in improving scalability, quality and production performance.

The solution has been successfully validated across more than 1,000 production molds used in GRG, FRP and GFRC fabrication for large-scale architectural projects. By embedding procedural manufacturing logic directly into the digital workflow, the method improves consistency, reduces user effort and enables scalable production of high-volume custom tooling.

Industry Recognition

The ACMA Awards for Composites Excellence (ACE) are among the composites industry's most recognized programs, celebrating innovations that advance design, manufacturing and market growth.

The Manufacturing Category's Equipment and Tooling Innovation Award recognizes equipment, tooling, production aids and software that improve manufacturing efficiency, sustainability, product quality and production performance across the composites sector.

Selection as a finalist places this tooling automation workflow among a select group of innovations recognized for advancing composites manufacturing through measurable improvements in productivity, workflow efficiency and production scalability.

Read More About the Innovation

The complete technical article,"Automating Layer Preparation in Composite Tooling Workflows," was published by CompositesWorld and details the development, implementation and production impact of the automated workflow.

Read the full article: CompositesWorld article

Learn more about the ACMA Awards for Composites Excellence: ACE Finalists List

Open Technical Documentation

Documentation for the workflow, including algorithm notes, installation guidance, screenshots and release information, has been published on GitHub.

GitHub Repository: Mastercam Splitlayer Automation

About Saumil Patel

Saumil Patel, P.Eng., is a mechanical engineer and digital fabrication specialist focused on tooling automation, computational manufacturing and advanced fabrication workflows. His work combines engineering, software development and digital manufacturing to improve the efficiency and scalability of composite tooling production. His innovations have been implemented in production environments, published in industry-leading technical media and recognized through industry awards and professional engineering practice.