Contrary to what appears to be popular belief, 5-axis CNC gear manufacturing is not limited to milling with end mill, ball mill or CoSIMT (Conical Side Milling Tool — it is the generic form of the Sandvik InvoMill and Gleason UpGear tools.) tools, where throughput is too low to prevent production at any significant level. Straight and spiral bevel gear manufacturing on 5-axis CNC machines using face mill cutters provides essentially the same throughput as conventional gear cutting machines — with added benefits.

Overall, the gear industry enjoyed a very strong 2018, and the optimism expressed by survey respondents is the highest in recent years. When asked about their optimism regarding their companies’ ability to compete over the next five years, 85.8% of respondents indicated some level of optimism.

Gear industry experts give their opinions about the most important trends facing gear manufacturers today.

We’ve just come off a very strong year for gear manufacturing, and most of you are looking forward to another good year in 2019. At least, that’s what the results of our annual State-of-the-Gear-Industry survey tell us.

We hope you enjoyed the many posts to fundamental topics during 2018. Our magazine has long been the “newspaper of record” for the gear industry an...

There is a great deal of buzz these days around the shortage of skilled workers for our manufacturing operations. Almost as much as there is concer...