Training has quickly evolved in recognition of the new realities of the factory floor. The training tool kit has never been more diverse or effective. Training regimens today, at the best companies, are analogous to those of the most successful professional sports or Olympic teams. Instead of weight room, nutrition, and practice, workers use digital webinars, simulations, and classrooms. If modern training tools and techniques result in faster, higher, and stronger on the athletic field, they also produce faster, smarter, and better for companies seeking a competitive edge in the marketplace.

In a world where hard finishing operations are now commonplace and high precision is the rule rather than the exception, many gear manufacturers are taking a closer look at workholding. Manufacturers have come to realize that workholding, long under-appreciated and over-looked, can play an important role in squeezing precious seconds out of idle time, help reduce costly runout on precision gear teeth to just a few microns, and cut the high cost of maintenance and repair.

Keep it simple. More often than not it turns out to be the best course of action in life and on factory floors. Take, for example, Gleason LeCount Expanding Mandrels. You’ll find them in quality labs around the world, delivering reliable, repeatable workholding performance for the inspection of gears and other bore-type workpieces. Quality labs today are at the epicenter of the drive to produce increasingly complex, high-precision parts, while at the same time racing to take time and cost out of the inspection process. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, the best workholding solution to meet these ambitious new inspection requirements turns out not to be something new and more complex—but the simplest solution of all: Gleason LeCount Expanding Mandrels.