Challenge

Numerous manufacturers around the world find themselves with legacy equipment incapable of meeting the changing environmental and safety standards recommended by regulatory standards. The customer in this case was operating an outdated grinding system lacking mist control with minimal safety features.

Maintain CE safety and environmental standards without hampering the functionality of the machine. Thrufeed grind 0.003”- 0.006” of material from steel tubes with a tolerance of +/- 0.0002 and achieving a superior surface finish. Lastly, the customer required the ability to connect the machine to the intranet for data gathering, monitoring and remote diagnostics.

 Challenge

The operator would manually feed the stainless steel orthopedic pins into the centerless grinder then manually clean and gauge each pin. Manual input and adjustment were required during the process to ensure quality.

Increase process throughput and quality production by integrating automation. Produce a part every 13 seconds in an automated “lights out” system. Reduce the opportunity for damaging critical features in material handling.

Challenge:

The customer was outsourcing grinding of components and came to Glebar looking for a way to reduce lead times on parts, reduce costs, and bring grinding capability in-house.

Original challenge was to thrufeed 1-½” diameter, 15’ aluminum tubes removing 0.003”-0.006” per pass. The second requirement was for the machine to be capable of grinding 8’ steel tubes which featured a 1” diameter bearing surface in the middle of the tube which could not be ground. This meant that the grind would have to begin in the middle of the tube where the machine had to infeed into that section and then initiate a thrufeed process. The part also had a thin wall that had to be maintained and the grinding process had to be controlled to avoid burning.

Challenge: Customer wants to increase output for steel taps used to drill threaded holes as used in the machining and tooling industry.  In addition to speeding up the throughput time, achieving the exact tolerances is critical for the component to create the proper threads.

Challenge:  A tier one Medical OEM wanted to improve its existing in-house process for grinding Nitinol Tubing. The existing machine was an older thrufeed centerless grinder which had a narrow wheel. The narrow wheel required the operator to grind the part to size in multiple passes.

Challenge: The customer is looking for a turnkey, one operation automated process allowing a single pass solution for Stainless Steel Bone Pins, for example.

Challenge: Customer wants to decrease cycle time by taking this from a one-sided traditional surface grinding application requiring two operations to a single double end grinding application.

Challenge: To devise a new process for an automotive component manufacturer to automatically grind and gauge pinion shafts for differentials. The shafts are made of hardened steel. The Customer is looking to expand their automotive manufacturing portfolio by bringing large volume production in-house.

Challenge: To design a fully automated turnkey feeding and inspection solution, integrated into to a Glebar GT-610 Thrufeed Grinder that ensures a one hundred percent defect-free product that is ground to a minimum 1.7 CpK and packaged hands-free. 

Challenge: To auto thrufeed grind metal valve seat components which are used in the automotive industry. The customer needed a system which could accurately grind and gauge 3,000 parts per hour. The width and nonsymmetrical geometry, would be the most difficult challenge engineers would face in devising a successful staging and feeding process as they are not able to line and stack up onto a traditional conveyor without falling over. 

Challenge: To grind two mating metal components, with a tight clearance requirement between their surfaces, to create a powered arthroscopic shaver used in orthopaedic joint surgeries.

Challenge: A tier one automotive fastener supplier needed to grind bolts for a major automotive company automatically at high volume, with a high degree of precision.The customer’s existing process was outsourced and was running one part at a time, resulting in a higher cost for our customer.In addition, quality and consistency of the components post grind was an issue.

Challenge: To grind diameters on parts of many sizes and lengths for a manufacturer of aerospace fasteners. The goal was to provide a solution that gave the customer a machine with intelligence, in-process inspection, ease of use and to maximize up time and production rates. 

Challenge: A tier one machine tool component manufacturer needed an in-house process to grind stainless steel shafts, used for Spring Lifters, automatically at a high volume, with a high degree of precision. The customer’s existing process was outsourced, resulting in a higher cost, in addition quality and consistency of the components post grinding was an issue.  The customer’s requirement was to have a large amount of stock removed while maintaining an 8Ra surface finish. 

Challenge: To grind two mating metal components, with a tight clearance requirement between their surfaces, to create a powered arthroscopic shaver used in orthopaedic joint surgeries.

Challenge: A food equipment manufacturer approached Glebar to improve productivity and reduce costs for their food filler machines. The metal spout requires grinding for several reasons. They come in contact with food, therefore requiring a smooth finish for sanitary purposes. The tubes are often exchanged on the machines to dispense various size pastries. Also, the mating housing for the spouts must be a close fit to prevent leaking and to keep appropriate content pressure to dispense the precise amounts.  Eight different components needed to be ground, all approximately four-inches in length, however they varied in diameters and weight. The variation of part geometries posed the biggest feeding challenge. Rapid changeover of grinding wheels was important to reduce setup time between the components. 

Challenge: Lack of a clear, simple method to inspect the geometric profile of many components. Existing systems are slow, unreliable, and complex to operate.

Challenge: Lack of a clear, simple method to inspect the geometric profile of many components. Existing systems are slow, unreliable, and complex to operate.

Challenge: To grind a variety of tooling punches to extreme precision, while accommodating small lot sizes with short changeover times. 

Challenge: Cycle time reduction and a sharp corner needed for a medical guidewire

Challenge: To eliminate additional processes in the production of guidewires. The conventional process uses several machines to profile a shape in an interventional guidewire.

Challenge: A Medical device customer needed to rapidly changeover between a family of Nitinol guidewires having various lengths and geometries. Since the geometry of the components varied in length, the customer needed to change tooling over frequently, a process that can take up to 4 hours. Also, rapidly removing over 30% of the the material as it thrufeeds into the machine accelerated tool wear on the existing system and as tooling degrades, dimensional integrity suffers.

Challenge: Infeed grinding 0.010”  on two diameters over a 7” long metal drill blank in one operation while maintaining 0.0002” diameter accuracy, .00006 roundness and maintaining part straightness and concentricity. 

Challenge: To grind 2 diameters for a large manufacturer on an intricate, metal injection molded part (asthma inhaler) in high volume (millions of parts per year) to micron precision. The component needed to be precisely ground to insure critical fit in a mating portion of the device to guarantee that the device would function as intended at all times. 

Challenge: To grind burnishing and expander rolls used in manufacturing tubes for a multitude of applications ranging from oil and gas tubes to automotive. Due to the shape of the parts which includes several tapers, the material removal is dramatic requiring several operations. Additionally the rolls are custom shapes so changeover between part types requires reshaping the grinding wheel. 

Challenge: Quality, cost control and lead time issues of outsourcing the pre-sizing of titanium and steel bars 

Challenge: To thrufeed automatically thru feed grind an automotive component and achieve a 1.2 Rz surface finish

Challenge: To process trocar points automatically where small lot sizes require frequent equipment changeover. 

Challenge: Lack of a clear, simple method to inspect the geometric profile of many components. Existing systems are slow, unreliable, and complex to operate.