Gleason Corporation and Smart Manufacturing Technology Ltd. have announced the release of the first phase of their strategic global partnership. Version 5.4 of SMT’s premier full-system transmission design and analysis software, MASTA, and Gleason’s industry-leading software for bevel and hypoid gear design and manufacture, CAGE, are now available with a seamless link between the two packages. Together these provide a new design-to-manufacture solution for bevel and hypoid gears with significant performance advantages and cost savings over current processes. Full-system durability and NVH analyses can be performed easily at any stage to help solve bevel and hypoid noise problems while gear flank geometry can be quickly optimized by performing system-level Loaded Tooth Contact Analysis. This improved virtual analysis and testing helps avoid the costs associated with repeated manufacturing and testing of prototype gears, saving customers both time and money. John J. Perrotti, president and chief executive officer of Gleason Corporation says, “Gear designers and producers have typically lived with many different software packages to satisfy their needs from design through production. Our new software offerings developed in collaboration with SMT for bevel and hypoid gears takes an important step towards delivering these solutions in a more integrated way.” David Beedan, operations director of Smart Manufacturing Technology, adds, “The joint vision of our partnership with Gleason was to allow MASTA and CAGE to work as if one product, best utilizing the strengths of both products. This first collaborative instalment does just that; indeed this marks a revolution in bevel and hypoid gear design-to-manufacture and we look forward to working with Gleason to bring further improvements to the design-to-manufacture process for the benefit of engineers worldwide.”