Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) is poised to further intensify its marketing activities in the U.S. and aggressively explore robust demand from U.S. manufacturers associated with their moves toward establishing new plants overseas. Those moves come amidst rising momentum for plant and equipment investment among U.S. companies, especially in the automobile and construction machinery industries. As one of its initiatives in this direction, MHI exhibited its machine tools at Gear Expo 2011 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Two machines were exhibited: the ZE40A, a gear grinding machine capable of high-precision machining and ideal for production of a wide variety of gears in small lots; and the ST25, a gear shaping machine enabling easy machining of special gears.
MHI, working through its local marketing bases, is looking to promote its advanced technologies and broad range of products accommodating needs in all aspects of high-precision gear manufacture. Marketing and servicing of the company’s gear cutting machines and other machine tools are handled by the Machine Tool Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Inc. (MHIA-MTD).
Today U.S. manufacturers are in recovery from the global recession that began in 2008. Companies in the auto industry in particular are actively ramping up plans to relocate or construct plants in the newly industrializing economies, including Mexico, and along with those moves demand for gear cutting machines is expanding globally. Because decisions on investment plans are generally made in the U.S., MHI aims to probe global demand for its machines through MHIA-MTD. Meanwhile for the U.S. market, the company will introduce product lines meeting needs from job shops that in many cases undertake wide-variety, small-lot production.
The ZE40A, launched earlier this year, is MHI’s latest universal gear grinding machine. It enables highly accurate post-heat treatment gear grinding for various sizes and types of workpieces by computerized control. With capability to machine gears of up to 600 millimeters (mm) in diameter, the ZE40A allows users to set even complex gear shapes by numerical control (NC).
The ST25 is capable of high-speed machining of up to 1,000 cutter strokes per second for pre-heat treatment of gears up to 250 mm in diameter. Setup time has been significantly reduced as the machine automatically sets all cutting conditions upon input of the machining data. The ST25 is also the first machine in the world to realize easy setting of helical angles through NC programming.
Since developing the world’s first dry-cutting gear production system using no cutting fluid in 1997, MHI has led the industry with its diverse gear cutting machines and cutting tools for all gear cutting processes from rough machining to finish processing. All machines in its lineup deliver outstanding performance and accuracy while simultaneously addressing global environmental issues. Leveraging its position as a world leader in gear cutting machines, going forward MHI aims to propose its sophisticated machines supported by advanced technology to U.S. manufacturers. At the same time it will also seek differentiation and enhancement of its presence amid rising competition against inexpensive machines for rough processing available from manufacturers in the emerging economies. Learn more at www.mitsubishigearcenter.com.
