The past several months have been filled
with uncertainty. Everyone wanted to wait and see who would be our next president and how the political landscape might change. Now the elections are over, and the polls are all closed, so we should all be getting back to business, right? Publisher Michael Goldstein shares insight from our state-of-the-gear-industry survey.
It wasn’t so very long ago that a high school-educated, able-bodied person with a will to work typically had little trouble finding a decent job in manufacturing. Whether at an area job
shop, an OEM plant or auto plant—work was to be had. Work that paid well
enough to marry, buy a home, feed, raise
and educate a family—with even enough
left over for a modest retirement pension.
Before we get into projections and prognostications about the future, let’s take a minute to review 2012. For many in the gear industry, the year was better than expected. Some manufacturers
had a very successful year leading up to an even more successful manufacturing trade show (IMTS 2012). Others were searching for more business, hoping that the general
state of the economy wouldn’t make things worse. In some cases, it did.
Gear Technology’s annual state-of-the-gear-industry survey polls gear manufacturers about the latest trends and opinions relating to the overall health of the gear industry. As in years past, the survey was conducted anonymously, with invitations sent by e-mail to gear manufacturing companies around the world.
The 2012 Gear Technology Buyers Guide
was compiled to provide you with a
handy resource containing the contact
information for significant suppliers of
machinery, tooling, supplies and services
used in gear manufacturing.
Understanding the morphology of micropitting is critical in determining the root cause of failure. Examples of micropitting in gears and rolling-element bearings are presented to illustrate morphological variations that can occur in practice.
AGMA925–A03 scuffing risk predictions for a series of spur and helical gear sets of transmissions used in commercial vehicles
ranging from SAE Class 3 through Class 8.
If you enjoy working with your hands—without doubt a large segment of Gear Technology’s audience—you must go to robives.com. There you will find one of the most clean-but-serious fun
websites on the Internet. It is where you will learn—or re-learn, in some cases—how to create things from paper. Origami, you’re thinking? Nah—mere child’s play.
Romax Technology, the gearbox, bearing
and driveline engineering specialist, has launched a new design software package that will increase speed, quality, creativity and innovation when designing gearboxes and drivelines. Called Concept, the new product delivers on the Romax vision of streamlining the end-to-end, planning-to-manufacture process with open, easy to use software solutions. It has been developed in close collaboration with engineers in the largest ground vehicle, wind energy and industrial
equipment companies around the globe.
Indiana Technology and Manufacturing
Companies (ITAMCO) has released iBlue—the first handheld bluetooth transmitter that gathers crucial production data and sends it to bluetooth-enabled smartphones, tablets and computers.
Another year, another AGMA Fall Technical Conference. But this is no ho-hum event. Not when every year, the conference attracts some of the greatest mechanical engineering minds on the planet, along with representatives of the world’s greatest manufacturing entities. And who knows—perhaps one day there will be an extraterrestrial contingent—the science is that good. And all of it readily applicable to real-world manufacturing.