Unlock Exclusive Access for FREE

Subscribe
Flash Story:

Gleason’s Gear Hobbing Redefines Precision and Quality

Gleason’s Gear Hobbing  Redefines Precision and Quality

Gleason Works India is part of the multinational Gleason Corporation, headquartered in Rochester, New York, USA. Gleason is a global leader in gear technology.

Gleason’s “Total Gear Solutions’” range from gear and transmission design software to the development and production of gear manufacturing machines and related accessories, gear metrology equipment and automation systems.

Gleason Works India Pvt. Ltd. was founded on April 1, 1996 in Bangalore to manufacture bevel gear cutting tools for the local Indian market.

In June 2017, Gleason India completed the construction of its ultra-modern 65,000-square-feet manufacturing and office facility with solar-powered rooftop, climate-controlled shop floor and full ISO certification.

Manufacturing Capabilities & Product Offerings

Today, Gleason India manufactures a full line of bevel gear cutting tools, gear hob cutters, shaving cutters, and the respective services for tool resharpening and reconditioning, including the resharpening of gear hobs.

Machine building activities include the manufacture of Genesis 130H, 210H and 280H CNC Hobbing Machines, 200SVP Gear Shaving Machine, 685Q Quenching Press, as well as machine upgrading and rebuilding services.

Gleason India manufactures cylindrical workholding systems for Gleason and other manufacturers’ machines.

Last but not least, Gleason India supports customers with application engineering services for bevel and cylindrical gears and offers extensive field service and aftersales support with sales and service centers located in Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.
Industries

Our products are used by customers in the automotive, commercial vehicle, aerospace, agricultural, mining, energy, construction, power tool, marine and many other industrial equipment markets. Basically, wherever and whenever a gear is turning, it is likely Gleason technology is somehow involved.

IoT Facilities

Gleason set milestones in connectivity back in the 90s such as remote connection modules and the first machine diagnostics and analysis systems.

Today, Gleason offers specific systems as well as the general IoT services available in the marketplace.

Gleason’s “Fingerprint” system in combination with Gleason’s Condition Monitoring Services has tremendously helped customers during the pandemic and the related travel restrictions to perform machine diagnostics and analysis remotely.

Gleason does not limit IoT solutions to the machine itself, but extends its systems to reach further with AR video systems, cloud services, and e-catalogs for spare and wear parts to name a few.

Sales and Service Networks

Gleason Works India supports customers from design to manufacture and finally inspection including design software and support, manufacturing machines and metrology systems, workholding, tools and all related services.

Gleason’s support team is formed by well-trained and highly experienced staff including application (bevel & cylindrical) customer service, and technology trainers with offices in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai, and — of course — including the product support team in the head office in Bangalore.

Gleason Works India also provides cylindrical and bevel gear design support employing KISSsoft gear and transmission design software and Gleason’s GEMS Bevel Gear Engineering and Manufacturing System.

Automation

Image Courtesy : ©Gleason

Gleason offers a wide array of fast and flexible automation systems including fully integrated automation modules made by Gleason inhouse. Gleason machines are easily integrated into existing workflows with vertical or horizontal orientation.

Loading systems for horizontal and vertical workpiece change can be fitted with different functions and specific auxiliary operations.

Next to typical third-party automation, Gleason offers fully integrated loaders and/or robotic systems which cater to conveyor, tray, or basket-based workpiece storage and transport systems.

The universal nature of Gleason machines and automation modules allows to integrate additional processing steps up or downstream of the actual gear manufacturing process like chamfering/deburring, pre-positioning of workpieces, coolant spin-off, brushing, roll testing and/or inspection, laser-marking or engraving. Many other functions are available on request.

Digitalization

Image Courtesy : ©Gleason

Digitalization extends to all areas of Gleason activities, in new product developments, processes we promote, as well as in daily work life. Constant networking of information and data exchange is necessary to make effective decisions based on all required facts.
Gear designs can now be checked for their manufacturability by creating digital twins that allow to simulate gear manufacture and expected results, feeding back changes to update the theoretical design without having made one cut or a single scrap part produced.
Closed Loop manufacture and digital networking of manufacturing and inspection equipment allows for in-process, detailed gear inspection and analysis and manufacturing process adaption in real time – without a single piece of paper or operator interference.

In service, for example, entire processes are redefined, service requests are recorded digitally and processing is automated to solve service cases quickly and learn for future occasions and interventions.

Manufacturing machines are supported by digitalized tools to identify quality issues before they become critical. Tooling is scanned and confirmed before its use to avoid wrong application or to scale lifetime to avoid extensive wear. In short, there are many applications of digitization within Gleason, that it is difficult to name them all, in general, there is hardly a process or product which is not affected.

Multiple Operation Machines

Gleason machines can include many additional functions like chamfering and deburring, chamfer rolling or cutting, turning, brushing, inspection or testing, marking, tool resharpening and many more. Depending on the actual product and application, these processes can be installed in parallel to the main manufacturing process or in sequence.

Image Courtesy : ©Gleason

Gleason’s USP

We offer many different products and each product has its own USPs. Gleason products are developed to be on the top of their game incorporating latest technological developments.

An important USP of Gleason is the system supplier approach: Customers can purchase single machines, workholding, tools and services, but they can also acquire a complete manufacturing system from one source making sure that all products fit perfectly together and are optimized within the system.

One of the latest technology highlights developed by Gleason is the revolutionary GRSL in-process inspection, supported by non-contact laser scanning and double flank roll testing. Cycle times for optical pitch and profile inspection are reduced to a few seconds, enabling 100% analytical inspection of applications with high quality demands.

Closed Loop capability allows to drive the connected hard finishing machine(s) and adapt machine settings to keep quality within the required tolerances.

This revolutionary system integrates state-of-the-art Advanced Waviness Analysis and KTEPS to thoroughly evaluate gears regarding their NVH behavior.

Another strength of Gleason is its global footprint with its sales and service network distributed around the globe, making sure that global players receive global support while maintaining a very local and accessible service to smaller and mid-sized customers.

Machine Condition Monitoring

Image Courtesy : ©Gleason

Thanks to today’s control technology and software systems, machine condition monitoring can be implemented effectively. Gleason’s “Fingerprint” condition monitoring system records machine status over time and compares actual and target data.

This regular process captures machine data including measurement of physical parameters such as power consumption and vibration behavior of various machine axes.

Data obtained by means of the machine’s digital and physical “Fingerprint” is analyzed by Gleason specialists and evaluated accurately to understand trending deviations and impending wear.

Gleason’s Fingerprint is pre-installed on many Gleason machine models with the option to extend to the full Condition Monitoring Service offered by Gleason.

Technology Upgradation & Online Diagnosis

In general, the goal is to make online services available on older machines, for example remote service and maintenance. For this purpose, Gleason offers its “Gleason Connect Box” in two different executions: one for mobile use, and one for fixed installation depending on customers’ requirements.

After digitalization of the machine, diagnostics can be performed via remote connection, including the installation of required updates.

Gleason offers software updates as a stand-alone service, but always recommends purchasing a more comprehensive service program to ensure customers fully benefit from the available maintenance options.

Gleason & Aerospace Sector

Image Courtesy : ©Gleason

Gleason has many customers in aerospace like HAL & its various units in India for helicopter and jet engine components providing cylindrical and bevel gear design, manufacturing and inspection solutions, like Curvic Gear manufacturing including bevel gear cutting and grinding, gear metrology, Curvic Gear cutting, cylindrical gear hobbing and quenching.

Gleason also supplies workholding and cutting tools to produce demanding aerospace components. Apart from HAL, there are private players in the aerospace sector who use Gleason equipment for domestic and export markets.

Gleason is certain that the Indian aerospace market will continue to grow with major investments coming from the Indian government itself as well as increased activity from domestic aviation companies and higher demand from export markets.

Sustainability

Gleason is committed to a long-term sustainable business model that involves every Gleason employee worldwide, implementing best practices for waste reduction and energy efficiency in all global operations, as well as sustainable product design and processes.

Image Courtesy : ©Gleason

New machines come readily equipped with energy monitoring and specific procedures to avoid idling spindles and limit energy consumption to times when it is actually required.

We also offer energy-saver packages for retrofits. Talking about retrofits, Gleason understands machine remanufacturing and recontrol, as well as component and spindle refurbishment as an important support to green initiatives, saving resources and reducing scrap.

Green thinking is also part of the daily service life at Gleason, with every remote maintenance and VR support completed, we actively avoid travel and minimize the related CO2 footprint.

(Left) Christian Albrecht, Chief Marketing Officer, (Right) Pardeep Kumar Aggarwal, General Manager, Gleason Works India