LMC Workholding Success Stories

United Gear & Assembly Turns to Face Drivers
to Cut Changeover Time

In many applications, mechanical face drivers may be the best way to turn parts. They provide maximum flexibility to lower cycle times, can turn the smallest and largest of parts, and permit both heavy and interrupted cuts.

A major benefit of face drivers lies in their ability
to allow complete turning of a part--from one end
to the other--in a single operation. Parts routinely
cut using face drivers include automotive
transmission parts, crankshafts, cam shafts,
pinion gears, electric motor shafts, and axles
up to 36-inch diameter.

In order to keep up with the increasing demand
for their turned parts, United Gear & Assembly,
Inc. turned to Neidlein face drivers from
LMC Workholding. With Neidlein face drivers,
the company could not only meet customer
demands, but was also able to lower their scrap
rate. The biggest benefit United Gear & Assembly
has received is the dramatic reduction of their changeover time,
in many cases cutting changeover time from two hours down to 15 minutes. 

Meeting the challenges of rapid growth

United Gear & Assembly, Inc. (Hudson, WI, www.ugaco.com) is a manufacturer
of gears and related power transmission parts used in over-the-road and
off-road equipment. Some of the different types of gears they produce include
spur, helical, bevel, spline, and internal. All together, they sell about 1.5 million gears per year to customers such as Eaton Hydraulics, Allison Transmissions, Caterpillar, John Deere, and Mack Truck.

The company also does a lot of shaft work.
The majority of the material being worked with
is bar stock for turning applications that are
processed on the Neidlein face drivers and the
recently acquired Neidlein live center. Diameters
range from one to five inches and lengths vary
from eight inches up to 38 inches.

Keith Mallek, Applications Engineer, says they acquired their first face driver about ten years ago. “Since then, we’ve picked up a significant amount of new work, and as a result, we’ve purchased more face drivers to meet an increasing demand for the types of gears we produce on these machines.”

Expanding Their Applications

“Originally we only used face drivers on very few projects,” Mallek explains, “but over the last year
and a half, we’ve broadened our horizons and we
now use them a lot more. This is because we’ve
taken on some additional work that lends itself
to face drivers, but also because we’ve seen
them as a better alternative to chucking on
some of the other gears we’ve been producing.”

“We’ve had no problems with our face driving applications,” Mallek reports. “We have three
standard Neidlein units supplied by LMC
Workholding, Logansport, IN, including models
FSB-1, FSB-01, and FSB-4. Also, we recently acquired a fourth one, which is a special design
for one particular part family we manufacture.”

“Primarily we’re working with 8620 and 4140 steels,” Mallek says. “We also run 4340, which is quench and temper material that’s usually around 32 to 38 Rockwell C. We use the standard drive pins in our face drivers, which work fine with these materials.”

A Custom Designed Solution

On one job for a particular customer, United Gear
& Assembly uses double chisel pins on a special
face driver designed for them by Neidlein. “This is
a new application for a current job that we had
because we exceeded the recommended 3-to-1
ratio of the drive pins,” Mallek explains. “The part
is four times the diameter of the drive so they
designed a special face driver with custom
double chisel pins that actually have two teeth
on each side. The face driver only holds three
pins but since there are two cutting edges or two chisels on each pin, it provides the equivalent of
six pins because there are six gripping edges.”

“We ran a test and gave all the paperwork to them,” Mallek continues. “Neidlein produced the driver and told us what we can and cannot do with it. It’s worked perfectly and does a good job.There are two part numbers that we are running on this driver but they are members of the same family of parts.”

United Gear & Assembly has not had any trouble with the Neidlein face drivers. The face drivers are used for about 10 percent of their gear work and for almost 100 percent of their shaft work.

Weighing the Benefits

“Our business is growing tremendously,” Mallek observes. “The face drivers are one more tool we have to meet this growing demand and expand our horizons.  Right now we are operating three machines with face drivers. The majority of the material that we run on the face drivers falls into the 1-1/4 inch to 2-1/2 inch range. A major benefit to us is the ease of changing from one part to another.”

Many part orders are recurring and the company is typically running lot sizes from 100 to 1800 pieces. The quantity and frequency to produce a specific part is all dependent on the needs of their customers.

“Our overall scrap rate did go down,” Mallek
observes. “We had issues with T.I.R. on the
former process, but by going the way we did,
we’ve eliminated that problem. Also, throughput
is better. But, the biggest benefit we get from
the Neidlein face drivers is in our changeover,
which has been reduced dramatically.”

The machines are run for three shifts around the
clock for six days of the week. The changeovers
vary daily depending on the needs of the customer.
It could be one changeover in a 24-hour period,
one every three days or two in a day. But no
matter when the changeover may be, United Gear & Assembly was able to reduce its changeover time from two hours to about 15 minutes in many cases.

The entire LMC Workholding line includes …

• LMC and Matsumoto hydraulic power chucks, cylinders and wheel chucks;
• Atling Steady Rests;
• Neidlein face drivers, as well as live and dead centers.