Gear Production
Issue link: http://gear.epubxp.com/i/155418
are those that can transform gear manufacturing in a signifcant way. Felsomat, which numbers Chrysler and ZF among its customers, has long been a technological innovator. And as it was acquired by Reishauer AG, gear grinding expert, in late 2010, its credibility in gear making has been burnished and its knowledge base expanded. "The FlexLine concept," Gilchrist says, "was designed to integrate the entire gear manufacturing process, from start to fnish." Gilchrist explains that the typical approach in automotive gear manufacturing is one in which there is a vast amount of work-in-process that is likely to be spread far and wide. That is, gear blanks are sourced from a third party. Then the gear making begins. Hobbing. Turning. Chamfering. Heat treating. Hard turning. Bore honing. Grinding. All generally performed in separate departments. Some companies actually send the gears-in-becoming out for heat treating. What Felsomat has done is to create a series of modules that can be integrated such that there is an integrated production system for gear manufacturing. For example, there's the FTC 180, a twin-spindle vertical turning center that can be used for both green and hard turning. The machine offers a chip-to-chip time of less than 1 second—that's with loading/unloading being performed parallel to the processing. Its hard turning capability is said to provide the kind of precision achieved with grinding. However, the machine is also designed to be matched with another machine in the lineup, the Reishauer RZ 260, a fnish grinding machine. The FTC 180 has a compact footprint (6 square meters). Other machines in the FlexLine lineup are the FHC 180, a high-speed machine that performs hobbing, chamfering and deburring; the FLW, a laser welding center that was developed with laser expert Trumpf (trumpf.com); the SyncroTherm, an in-process heat-treating system developed with ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH (ald-vt.com); and the FPSH, a high-speed honing machine for hardened gears. Rather than having processes performed throughout (or outside) a facility, the FlexLine approach is predicated on one-piece fow. An exception, of course, is the heat treating. Gilchrist says that in conventional operations there may be as many as many as 1,000 gears put in the oven, and there may be issues with the uniformity of heat treating, given the density of gears in the furnace. The SyncroTherm unit has up to six "hot zones" stacked one above the other. A limited number of gears are put on each of the part carriers; there are fat-panel radiators above and beneath each of the layers for uniform heating. Parts are vacuum carburized, then quenched. While this isn't single-piece processing, it is still a Gear making can be characterized by bins of in-process parts that necessitate a lift-truck for transport. Note the lean production trays of parts that are part of the Felsomat FlexLine. comparatively small-batch operation. "We try to make everything as compact as possible," Gilchrist says. "When we work on a transmission program, we try to save 20 to 40 percent foor space." He goes on to explain that the implications of this can be signifcant when the cost of factory foor space and all it entails (everything from employees who staff the equipment to lighting and HVAC) are taken into account. "Our success normally comes when talking to someone in the organization who understands the total cost of building a plant—and the total cost of building a transmission." September 2013—13