Accurate Die Design, Inc. was founded in 2001 by Raymond J. Proeber. Prior to this, Mr. Proeber had been working in the tool and die and metal stamping industries for over 23 years. 15 years were spent on the bench as a tool and die maker, during which plenty of time was also spent in the evenings doing die design "on the board". Another 8 years were spent in management serving as tool department manager and later as vice president of a prominent Milwaukee area metal stamper.
AutoCAD® and DIEMAKER™ were purchased but within one year, “All the simple stuff went overseas and I was left getting lots of 3D models that I didn’t have any way of designing dies for.” Ray said. So in 2002 he purchased SolidWorks and became a Certified SolidWorks Professional. Three large automotive type dies were designed and detailed during part of that year using SolidWorks, but he quickly realized that a die design specific software add-on similar to what he had used for making die design more efficient in 2D CAD was sorely missed using 3D SolidWorks alone.
It was around this time that a second employee was hired and in January, 2003 there were 2 different 3D die design packages being developed for SolidWorks - one in France by a company that had been doing this exclusively since their company was formed in 1989 to do so, and the other in China by a SolidWorks reseller there. In September, 2003 Ray traveled to China to be trained in one of these packages. Days after returning from training in China he decided to abandon it. It was also during 2003 that Accurate Die Design, Inc. became a Forming Technologies Incorporated (FTI) reseller for their flattening, forming simulation and forming analysis software.
In 2004 a third employee was hired, so there were now 3 full time, experienced die designers on staff. 2004 was also the year that Logopress3 was officially introduced in the U.S. In 2005 Accurate Die Design, Inc. was named the U.S. Technical Center for Logopress3, providing all training and support and also becoming the master distributor for Logopress3 in the U.S. and parts of Canada and Mexico. In 2005 a fourth employee was hired to help support the software end of their business.
Since 2005 the software part of their business had grown dramatically to where it is today. That is, Accurate Die Design, Inc. has become a company that focuses 100% of their efforts on making others in the tool & die and metal stamping industries more efficent. This is done through sales, training and support of industry leading die design software along with related flattening, forming simulation and forming analysis software.