Forest City Gear applies advanced gear shaping and inspection technologies to help solve difficult lead crown correction challenges half a world away. But these solutions can also benefit customers much closer to home, the company says. Here's how…
Bearings ain't beanbag. They are complicated. They are big-business. They are often counterfeited. They are used in virtually anything that moves.
But it is the "complicated" part that
challenges OEMs, job shops and other
operations, and, most of all, their
employees. Add to that the countless
other entities around the world that are
intimately involved with bearings and
you can arrive at a semblance of an idea
of just how important these precious
orbs can be to a successful operation.
Market needs push in 2013, but will it get one? The construction/off-highway
industries have been here before. New equipment, technologies and innovations during an economic standstill that some have been dealing with since 2007.
Although a cell is dedicated to produce a single part family, it must have the requisite equipment capabilities, routing flexibility, cross-trained employees and, to the extent possible, minimal external process dependencies. Cells are often implemented in job shops since they provide the operational benefits of flowline production.
The essence of designing gears is often by necessity risk-averse, given that many of them are used in applications where loss of life is a distinct possibility. The Gear Research Institute (GRI) at The Pennsylvania State University conducts risk reduction testing with the same goal in mind - whether it be gears in fighter jets, Ferris wheels, tanks, or countless other gear-reliant vehicles and machinery.
It’s been said that the best ideas are often someone else's. But with rebuilt, retrofitted, re-controlled or remanufactured machine tools, buyer beware and hold onto your wallet. Sourcing re-work vendors and their
services can require just as much homework, if not necessarily dollars, as with just-off-the-showroom-floor machines.
The hob is a perfect example of how a little manufacturing ingenuity can make a reliable, highly productive cutting tool. It's an engineering specimen
that creates higher cutting speeds, better wear resistance and increases rigidity. The cutting tool alone, however, can't take all the credit for its resourcefulness. Advanced coating
technology from companies like Sulzer, Oerlikon Balzers, Ionbond, Seco Tools and Cemecon helps improve cutting tools by reducing overall costs, increasing tool life and maintaining the highest levels of productivity. The following is a quick recap of new technologies
and the latest information in the coating market.