Forest City Gear has begun operations in a new state-of-the-art facility designed to greatly improve lead times and quality for the production of precision gear blanks.
This new division of Forest City Gear, called Roscoe Works and dedicated solely to the production of precision turning, operates from its own highly productive new 8,500 sq. ft. facility in close proximity to Forest City Gear’s main facility in Roscoe, IL. That’s good news for Forest City Gear customers, said Roscoe Works general manager Larry Cass. “Roscoe works gives us complete control over the quality and delivery of the blanks (and slugs) that are the ‘near net shape’ starting point for many of the gears we produce,” Mr. Cass said. “The types of projects we take on here at Forest City Gear for customers around the world have never been more demanding from a quality and delivery standpoint. If we start off a project with turned blanks out of tolerance, or waiting for blanks from a supplier, this can ultimately create a devastating production bottleneck in our KanBan system where operations upstream are sitting idle waiting for product to arrive.”
According to Mr. Cass, the new facility easily meets current capacity requirements, and gives the company much additional room to grow. For example, a new Hardinge Quest RS 51 MSY (Super Precision) Turning Center with 16 station turret, sub-spindle, and live tooling with C-Axis and Y-Axis gives Roscoe Works the ability to completely machine blanks and slugs in a single setup that includes all turning, millin, and drilling operations. For faster production of larger blanks (up to 6” in diameter), Roscoe Works has installed a new Takisawa TT200G Twin Turret, Twin Spindle Turning Center. This machine can perform simultaneous turning of either identical or first and second operations on twin spindles. A new Tsugami Swiss-Style Lathe and an Okuma CNC Vertical Lathe will soon replace two older machines and add still more capacity.
In related news, Forest City Gear president Wendy Young has been elected to the American Gear Manufacturers Association’s Board of Directors, and began serving her three year term at AGMA’s Annual Meeting in April.
Young has been president of Forest City Gear, a leading producer of high-quality fine- and medium-pitch gears for a wide range of industries and applications around the world, since 2002. In assuming her role as one of 12 AGMA board members, Ms. Young said, “With over 400 member companies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, AGMA is of vital importance to the continued strengthening and expansion of our industry here and abroad. I look forward to working with my fellow board members and AGMA’s fine staff to help with this mission.”
Roscoe, IL-based Forest City Gear has, for over 50 years, been one of the gear industry’s leading sources for the development, manufacturing, and inspection of the highest quality gears for use in applications that range from medical devices to motorcycles, airplanes to automation, even including the Mars Curiosity Rover. For more information, visit www.forestcitygear.com.
