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Flexibility and productivity gains will be the focus in gear generation technology
"The gear manufacturing industry took a hard blow following the 2007 mortgage crisis and 2008 financial crisis, and the aerospace and automotive sectors were among the hardest hit," says David Goodfellow, president, Star SU (Hoffman Estates, IL). "Today, credit is still tight, making capital purchases difficult for many manufacturers. Companies are using equipment longer, using up tool inventories, and are slower to adopt new technologies. Overall, companies are a lot more cautious. Star SU and its partners SAMP SpA (Bologna, Italy), Star Cutter (Farmington Hills, Ml), and Bourn & Koch (Rockford, IL) have taken these factors into consideration, and adapted to the situation."
According to Goodfellow, every new product Star SU has brought to the market recently has features designed to improve manufacturing productivity. Machines run faster and more efficiently. New toolchangers allow operators to switch from roughing and finishing without stopping the machine. Some machines are set up to do both processes in a single pass, while others with multiple heads change tools in the background while another head is running.
* Samputensili, one of Star SU's partners, will bring a new hob head and turn-mill adapter that are part of its Invento gear center to IMTS. It will appear in the booth set up by MAG (New York), because SAMP and MAG are working together to bring gearcutting capabilities to large turning centers.
* Star Cutter's new NTG tool and cutter grinding machine has a three-station wheel and manifold changer that switches grinding wheels in 10-15 sec. Its high-volume autoloader loads and unloads in 15 sec or less.
* Sicmat's Raso 200 CNC shaving machine also offers an integrated unit for chamfering and deburring using PILPRO software to safely and quickly program complex shaving cycles.
When designing its new line of grinding, shaping, and turning machines Bourn & Koch kept this new reality in mind. The 1000VBS CNC gear shaping machine to be shown at IMTS is built on the same base platform as machines built for other processes, namely for vertical ID/OD grinding and turning.
Finally, companies that support the gear manufacturing industry are working together more and more, sharing expertise, facilities, knowledge, equipment, customer contacts, and staff. Star...