With thousands of customers around the world using Wenzel machines, the company is considered a leader in the metrology industry. Its focus is on solving the toughest measuring requirements for its customers, wielding its longtime expertise in German engineering, which dates back to 1968. Parent company Wenzel Präzision GmbH was founded by Werner Wenzel in Wiesthal, Germany, as a provider of testing equipment and precision measuring tools.
Wenzel’s development of its first 3D coordinate measuring machine in 1980 paved the way for its continued success. In 2003, Wenzel GearTec was founded, and its first gear inspection machine was developed.
Wenzel Steintechnik GmbH was founded in 2006 in order for Wenzel to have direct control over the granite that is so imperative in all Wenzel metrology machines.
In 2007, the company expanded to Singapore and opened another office in Leipzig, Germany. Additionally, Wenzel America became its own entity to spearhead sales in North America. The expansion into the U.S. was an important milestone for the company, especially due to the size of the U.S. metrology market.
Wenzel continued to expand into South Asia and entered the computer tomography market in 2008. In 2009, the Wenzel ScanTec division opened its doors to provide optical high-speed measurement and digitization solutions.
“The inception of the company in 1968 by Werner Wenzel has had a profound effect, changing the landscape of what the metrology industry is today,” said Mariano Marks, Wenzel’s product specialist in gear metrology. “We are the largest family-owned company in our industry, and we strive to compete in all industry sectors with products ranging from CMMs for 3D metrology to gear inspection, styling solutions, optical high-speed scanning, and computed tomography.”
Wenzel has 35 employees in its Wixom, Michigan, location, and its headquarters in Wiesthal, Germany, employs around 350 employees, with over 600 worldwide including Europe, Asia, and the Americas and operating in over 40 countries.
“We serve almost all manufacturing industries including automotive, aerospace, energy, construction, defense, transportation, agriculture, and others, since just about any part in manufacturing needs to be measured in some way,” Marks said.
Wenzel provides a full line of metrology solutions for gear inspection through its dedicated gear inspection equipment as well as its CMM-based solutions. Both have the ability to inspect helical, spur, bevel, worm, worm wheel, and synchronization gears, as well as cams, racks, rotors, hobs, shapers, shavers, and broaches.
“We are also able to reverse scan spur gears to obtain their nominal data, and we can inspect all of the above to the most common industry standards including AGMA, DIN, ISO, ANSI, and JIS as well as many company-specific standards,” Marks said. “For our scanning technology, we use the trusted, reliable, and ubiquitous Renishaw products in the form of the SP600M and SP80 scanning heads.”
Wenzel’s customer philosophy is based on developing personal relationships and meeting customer needs as a family-owned business.
“We have custom solutions, like for our CMMs and gear inspection machines; we have close collaborations with our customers, and we have quick response times regarding our service,” Marks said. “This makes us effective and flexible when it comes to solving our customers’ problems. For instance, when a customer needs to check a particular gear, we help develop the necessary software that provides them with their specific results. The customer is not only thankful, but they help us better ourselves.”
What sets Wenzel apart is being a global company with a local feel.
“We are large enough to support customers around the world, while providing a unique and personal level of service,” Marks said. “We always strive for lasting quality and our customers’ continued success.”
As far as customer demands in gear metrology and inspection, Marks says he has seen more needs for worm gear inspection, presumably due to the increase in the need for robotics in automation.
“I’ve also seen the more non-traditional job shops starting to manufacture and develop gears, which changes the demographics of our typical customer,” Marks said.
Another way he sees gear metrology and inspection evolving is with even bigger gears requiring the same types of tighter tolerances that smaller gears do.
“Smaller parts also seem to be getting even smaller,” Marks said. “It’s these two extremes that always seem to be changing.”
Wenzel offers on-site and off-site training for its entire suite of gear software as well as training for its other metrology software such as Quartis, OpenDMIS, PointMaster, and DesCAD3D.
The company is also AUKOM certified to provide an up-to-date, comparable, controllable, comprehensive, and certifiable training program regarding industrial production metrology, particularly in the area of coordinate metrology.
“It is a program for metrologists, production engineers, design engineers, and even managers (really, anybody in the field of metrology who wants to enhance their skillset through our one-week training courses),” Marks said. “It helps reduce costs, minimize waste, and make effective decisions. AUKOM is increasingly being recognized globally with companies that aim to maintain a high level of metrology practices and knowledge.”
For the company’s future initiatives, Marks says it foresees refining and developing its product offerings to reflect the needs of the market.
“For example, we exhibited our new exaCT U computed tomography machine at the Control show in Stuttgart, Germany,” Marks said. “We also want to enhance the user experience through our software and technology, for example, by providing software modules updated with the latest gear metrology standards and intuitive user interfaces.”
Wenzel America is ISO/IEC 17025 accredited through ANAB for the calibration of inspection equipment. And it’s a member of the American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA).
“As a part of AGMA, I’ve had the chance to meet many wonderful people in the industry after participating in its Basic Training for Gear Manufacturing class,” Marks said. “They’ve proven to be an invaluable resource to my development in the gear industry. We’re also very excited to exhibit at AGMA’s Gear Expo 2017, so make sure to visit us in booth #206.”
More info www.wenzelamerica.com
