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

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

To establish a process whereby pre-sintered carbide drill blanks processed in a hot isostatic press (HIP) can be pre-sized to produce straight rod stock for long blanks. The existing method of manufacture involves sintering the carbide rods in a hot isostatic press then grinding them to size in a hard state before the fluting operation is performed. This procedure requires multiple thrufeed grinding operations which is labor intensive and accelerates wear and tear to the grinding machine and tooling since the hard carbide usually has a non-uniform lumpy surface; furthermore several thrufeed passes are need post-sintering to size the carbide to its final diameter and to achieve the uniform diameter required.

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

Challenge: Cycle time reduction and a sharp corner needed for a medical 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: Lack of a clear, simple method to inspect the geometric profile of many components. Existing systems are slow, unreliable, and complex to operate.