Case Studies

Case History: Outsource/Supplier Solutions

When ore is pulverized to extract its minerals, it must be sifted like flour to remove the lumps.  Sifting tons of ore per hour is the job of a mining screen.  Shaking this giant screen is, in turn, the job of a special gearbox with eccentric weights called an exciter.  A leading mining equipment manufacturers had their exciter drives made overseas to their specifications, but the lead time raised havoc with their production schedules.  GearTechnic was asked if they could produce the drives faster but at no greater cost.  They reviewed the customer's design and suggested simple, sensible changes in dimensions and materials.  The customer was delighted and ordered more than fifty exciters over three years.  Several exciters were produced in only a few weeks so the customer could display their screens at the Las Vegas Mining Show.

As a footnote, this customer later tried another, cheaper exciter, but soon switched back to GearTechnic: the other, new exciters were failing in service while the older GearTechnic drives kept on going. Now this customer uses only GearTechnic exciter drives--with no exceptions allowed.

New Product Design

A major machine tool manufacturer designed a new series of vertical machining centers, which incorporated an off-the-shelf two-speed drive to provide high torque for drilling and tapping large diameter holes, milling exotic alloys, and for rapid machining in softer materials. The drive they choose never made it past the prototype stage: it suffered from high noise levels, high operating temperatures, and worst of all, gear failure due to steady pounding from making its heavy cuts.

Over a dozen gear companies were asked to provide a solution, but only GearTechnic Corporation could provide a drive that met the demanding requirements.  Further, the customer was surprised to find GearTechnic's price was half what they paid for the off-the-shelf two-speed drive.  GearTechnic agreed to sell this drive exclusively to them and won a U.S. patent to prevent the customer's competitors from copying this innovative gear drive.

After five years and over 1,000 transmissions, the customer is very happy that they choose GearTechnic to solve their power transmission problems.

Cost Reduction

A Midwest manufacturer of high-speed wrapping machines wanted to outsource right-angle gear drives they produced in-house.  They were growing fast and lacked the personnel and space for producing the drives themselves.  Further, the bearings in the current design were not holding up and the customer was experiencing a rash of field failure, making the project urgent.

GearTechnic reviewed the designs and suggested changes to the gear geometry and in the bearing arrangements to reduce noise levels and increase bearing life.  GearTechnic hustled to get the new design into production and delivered the first batch within three weeks.  The new drives ran smoothly, quietly and reliably with no bearing failures.  Further, the customer was pleased to find they were saving over 24% in costs.

This success led this customers to team their engineers with GearTechnic to produce right-angle timing drives for a new machine they were developing.  When that project was also completed successfully, the engineers then worked to redesign an existing machine's drives.  Again, the successful retrofit of the drives led to the spin-off of two other drives for their existing products.

Now, nearly everything they make has a GearTechnic drive on it because they run quieter, are easier to install, and run day in and day out, around the clock, and in different environments around the world.

Failure Resolution

A manufacturer of waste water aerators was up to their necks in ... trouble.  The gear drives they were using for their pure oxygen aerators were highly modified to survive their severe operating environment.  After a few months in service, the drives began to fail: first, they began to leak oil, then bearings began to fail.  This forced the gears--and even the gear cases--to fail.  No remedy seemed to work.  They knew that they had only one more chance to make things work or their customer was dropping them.

GearTechnic examined the application requirements and came up with an entirely new approach to the problem.  Every aspect of the new design was reviewed with the customer's engineers.  The goal primary goal was ensuring the drive would survive.  Of course, economics could not be ignored and every effort was made to ensure the drive would be both affordable and reliable.

Tension was high as the first batch of drives was tested.  Reducing the operating temperature was a prime design goal, and the customer was pleased to find the units ran nearly 50 degrees cooler than the old ones.  This was a result of higher operating efficiency and was confirmed by a significant reduction in motor current.  The batch was shipped and this time they didn't come back.

The manufacturer kept their customer and today they sell their aerators with GearTechnic drives exclusively.