Grinding is a quintessential process to ensure a precision-made gear. It’s a needed step that has been enhanced and improved upon for decades.
The experts at CUMI (Carborundum Universal Murugappa India) have played a huge role in the grinding of gears and more in the abrasives sector for more than seven decades.
“As far as the range of products that we have for gear grinding, we take pride in offering the complete range of gear grinding solutions for the gear industry,” said Ramesh Kalyanaraman, Head of Technology with CUMI Abrasives. “Probably, we are one of the very few manufacturers in the world who have the complete portfolio of products for gear applications.”
Range of products
CUMI’s comprehensive range of products include profile grinding, generative grinding, gear honing, bevel gear grinding, internal grinding wheels, and diamond dressing tools, according to Kalyanaraman. Driven by innovation and close collaboration with customers, CUMI continues to develop next-generation bond systems tailored specifically for the gear industry — delivering solutions that elevate performance at every stage of the process
“If you break it down into each segment and if you look at the continuous generative grinding, we make the complete range of products for the conventional machines that use the aluminum oxide range of products and for all the new CNC machines like Klingenberg, Liebherr, Reischauer, that use high end micro-crystalline abrasives based vitrified bonded wheels that can run at 80 meters per second,” he said.
Included in those products offered by CUMI are the latest two-zone grinding wheel that has a vitrified bonded portion for rough grinding and a plastic bonded portion in order to provide superior finishing, according to Kalyanaraman.
“We have a great range of products,” he said. “We also have the baby gear grinding with a smaller diameter 95mm wheel, which is used for compact gear assembly components. Those are the areas where we have a complete range of products for the continuous generative grinding application.”
Within the profile grinding processes, CUMI has a premium aluminum oxide range of products in the 45mps range, according to Kalyanaraman.
“Typically, for the moderate Q’w range, we have the premium aluminum oxide products,” he said. “As far as high-end Q’w applications are concerned, we have products that are designed with a combination of microcrystalline and monocrystalline grains. So today, we can proudly offer products that can give a Q’w of almost 40 to 50, which is really the best in class.”
When it comes to bevel gears, Kalyanaraman emphasized CUMI offers the plate mounted wheels for the bevel application. The company has a product range for both moderate and high Q’w applications.
Gear honing is another service CUMI recently has begun to offer, according to Kalyanaraman.
“Gear honing is a relatively new development that CUMI has gotten into, and we have recently launched a range of products in gear honing in the vitrified range,” he said.
Best service possible
Having a large range of high-end products to offer the industry is part of CUMI’s decades-long business model to ensure its customers and stakeholders get the best service possible, according to Kalyanaraman.
“We are a material science company,” said Suresh Venkataraman, Head-International Business with CUMI Abrasives. “At CUMI, our purpose is ‘Making a Material Difference.’ We continuously drive innovations in material science toward sustainable value creation. We design, co-create, and deliver solutions that make a significant contribution to all our stakeholders. We deliver highly innovative and sustainable solutions to them.”
Keeping an eye on the industry
Carefully watching a changing industry by offering sustainable and innovative solutions is what has helped CUMI thrive, according to Kalyanaraman.
“We at CUMI take a lot of pride in continuously advancing our R&D capabilities to meet the evolving demands of the industry,” he said. “We continuously keep track of what’s going on in the industry. We observe the mega trends that’s going on like, for example, change from the IC vehicles moving into electric.”
“Everybody’s looking for higher precision, better tolerances, and improved surface finish now,” he said. “We see a lot of hard machining and single point cutting are now moving into grinding applications. That’s a new opportunity for us. We also believe that there are some grinding applications that are going away because of improved manufacturing processes.”
To that end, a lot of methodology changes in the way components are made — especially with gears, according to Kalyanaraman.
“We continuously adapt ourselves to the changing needs to understand what’s going on and what translates into the product design,” he said. “All the customer voices are always continuously monitored, and then we continuously keep designing our products to meet the exacting demands of the customer. We come up with solutions for the changes.”
Meeting challenges head on
That means challenges come up often, but David Braun, product specialist with CUMI America, said his team is ready for whatever the industry throws at them.
“We thrive on challenges,” he said. “We follow the GSE, grind systems engineering, and adopt Systems Thinking Methodology. We map the entire grinding process for the customer application. Performance simulation studies are done at our Surface Technology Center (STC) to develop and test all prototypes. Once a prototype is done, we conduct complete field evaluations followed by fine tuning of solutions as needed. It’s a systematic collaborative approach that ensures we deliver precisely what the customer needs — solutions that improve performance and reliability from day one.”
And those solutions CUMI creates always start at square one, according to Braun.
“It’s always from complete scratch,” he said. “I think you need to look at the complete application because every application is different; every machine is different; every operator is different, so everything is a custom grind solution. There, unfortunately, isn’t in this world, a one-size-fits-all, out-of-the-box solution to these things.”
70 years of experience
CUMI was founded in 1954 as a tripartite joint venture between Carborundum Company, USA, Universal Grinding Company UK, and the Murugappa Group from Madras (now known as Chennai), according to Venkataraman. Later in the early 1990s, CUMI built a fully integrated R&D department through which the company was able to develop a comprehensive range of bonded and coated abrasives.
“Over a period of time, we kept adding products, and today, we have more than 20,000 varieties of products developed over the past seven decades,” he said. We are a material science company working in the high-end advanced materials and technologies. We are a global leader in abrasives, electro minerals, industrial ceramics, and refractories, serving customers in more than 40 countries. With abrasives, we cater to automotive, bearings, steel, aerospace, construction, fabrication — you name any industry where an abrasive is used, and we’re there.”
Awards and accolades
Over CUMI’s 70 years, CUMI has been recognized multiple times as a Best Supplier by leading global manufacturers in the bearing, automotive component, and aerospace industries, in appreciation of the company’s high-quality grinding solutions, according to Venkataraman.
“CUMI holds more than 100 patents in the material science domain,” he said. “And our R&D team has numerous accolades in terms of innovation awards including the prestigious Golden Peacock Innovation Award instituted by the Institute of Directors (IOD), India.”
CUMI’s manufacturing plants follow Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) methodology laid out by the Japanese Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM). The company has been awarded for “Excellence and Consistency” in TPM practices by JIPM over the years.
CUMI also has won India’s Best Managed Company award instituted by Deloitte India multiple times.
Those awards are a testament to CUMI’s determination to keep the growing needs of customers satisfied, according to Venkataraman, and CUMI’s versatile product range is matched by very few manufacturers in the world.
Sustainability
But to achieve those higher tolerances at a lower cost will also involve another factor: sustainability, according to Kalyanaraman.
“Everybody’s looking for a sustainable process whereby the entire global carbon footprint is coming down, and therefore it puts a lot of pressure on CUMI to really stand up and deliver to these changing needs of the customers,” he said. “We are committed to staying at the forefront by developing advanced materials. We’re continuously working on new materials, new technologies, and new manufacturing processes that can really support these customer requirements. CUMI definitely will be playing a very active role in meeting the industry’s changing requirements.”
Vertically integrated company
In addition to all the company’s accomplishments and accolades, a large part of CUMI’s continued success in the abrasives sector is the company’s ability to be a completely vertically integrated company, according to Venkataraman.
“You rarely see a company that is so vertically integrated,” he said. “We own our own mines. We make our own abrasive grains, our own bonds, and our own resins. Of course, we produce our own range of grinding wheels”
CUMI’s research takes place in every stage of the supply chain, starting from the abrasive grains to the finished product, according to Venkataraman.
“We have our own surface technology center where every application is simulated,” he said. “I would say this is a unique quality and a unique strength of CUMI, which you’ll not find in many manufacturers globally. What we have is something only very few manufacturers in the world have.”
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