What is your role is at Weiler Abrasives?
I am the Americas Sector Manager for Industrial Production products. I’m involved in all product aspects for our precision grinding wheels that includes manufacturing, managing inventory, aiding product design, and addressing customer pain points in the field as well as in the office and on the technical side. My current role supports North and South America. We’re really out there designing new solutions. We take what end users are currently using or have been using and come up with new solutions. With ever-changing materials, there’s always the need to grind faster or grind more efficiently, and we’re all about solution development.
What makes gear grinding lead times an issue with gear manufacturers in the automotive, energy, and aerospace sectors?
Most of these products are made to order, so the inherent manufacturing time just to get it in the production queue and shipped is significant for all producers. A domestic source could take around 10 weeks to get a wheel produced and then shipped to the end user. There are a lot of job shops in the industrial production space that get a custom job and they need a wheel in a couple of weeks to knock that job out. Waiting almost three months for a wheel isn’t an option. Our new service, Precision Express, allows us to drastically cut lead times for grinding wheels, allowing gear manufacturers to deliver to their customers on time.
We’re making the final tweaks to the product based on what the end user needs, whether it’s a different thickness of wheel, different modules or pressure angle on the grinding wheel profile, or adding a recess on the side so it mounts up properly on the end user’s machine. We can provide any custom feature that might be needed. We now offer a new two-week, quick-turn service that provides significantly quicker lead times to the end user.
What is Precision Express and what makes it a game changer for gear grinding manufacturers?
Precision Express as a whole is a stock offering of a multitude of blanks. Right now, we have over 120 different blanks on the shelf. We can custom profile for any gear grinder in the North and South American markets right now. If an end user needs a wheel quickly, we can provide that service. It may not be the optimal wheel, but it’s a wheel that will get them out of a jam and deliver to their customer on time. It also allows us to potentially collect the data and optimize from there with an even better wheel in the future. It’s basically industry-standard-plus-one level of stock performance. We know all of our specifications will compete and that they work; they’ve been field validated at multiple end users that we’re currently selling to.
What is V59 bond technology, and how does it factor in with the Precision Express?
The bond nomenclature, we call it V59, is a modification of an existing bond we already had. We took one of our premium vitrified bonds and modified that to add some higher performance characteristics. It has a different color than some of the other bonds we use. It’s a little bit stiffer, which holds onto the abrasive grain particle longer. V59 provides a longer wheel life and holds the form longer so the end user doesn’t have to dress as many times per part or as frequently.
Any other advantages to this V59 bond technology?
V59 has a lesser propensity to burn or heat up the part, which can cause surface defects on the part that’s being ground. It grinds cooler than most other vitrified bonds on the market. That’s a combination of the bond and the porosity agent that we’re using within the wheel. The combination of the two creates the ultimate grinding wheel matrix that gives the end user the best of both worlds. They’re holding form, still getting their cut rate, but not burning the part.
What do you expect the industry reaction to be?
We believe it’ll be really positive because lead times are a huge challenge today. What we’re offering in Precision Express will help gear manufacturers serve their customers more effectively. They will have the agility to quote, test, and work faster than ever. They will also be able to manage their grinding wheel inventory more effectively knowing they can get a wheel when they need it.
We’ve already used the new production cell and delivered orders, and our service did what we’re advertising. They needed five wheels quickly to get out of a jam, and we were able to cut those wheels and ship them in two weeks.
Anything else you’d like to talk about that we didn’t discuss?
I think it’s the total process solution. The product is finished on brand new equipment. We are holding very tight tolerances with the CNC, so we’re able to finish that wheel to exactly what the customer needs and tighter than current industry standards. Our wheels are consistent part-to-part, and we have an automated CNC program in the background that compensates for the tool wear as it’s cutting the wheel. We also balance the grinding wheels to near perfect balance, conduct dimensional inspections with a CMM to measure precise dimensions, and speed test to ANSI B7.1 safety standards. Additionally, we have increased the rigidity of the packaging to protect it during transit to guarantee it arrives safely.
