Gearing Up for the Future

 "If the profile of a gear wheel for a crane is not manufactured precisely, the manufacturer may have just wasted 40,000 euros." This was precisely the reason why the subject of metrology was so important for Sandvik when the company decided to enter the market for gear hobs.

Sandvik was already using ZEISS coordinate measuring machines. What was missing, however, was a specialized measuring program that met three criteria: first, during the measurement, all 17 DIN 3968 requirements on a hob of a certain quality class must be covered. Second, the results of this measurement should be automatically entered in the measurement report. Finally, the software should facilitate fast measurements. Sandvik was unable to find software on the market that met their needs. Their inquiry to ZEISS led to a development collaboration.

Today, the GEAR PRO hob measuring software from ZEISS meets all the requirements defined by Sandnik without exception: at the push of a button the measuring machine measures all of the distances and dimensions specified in DIN 3968. The software uses the results to generate the measurement report. This documents the accuracy class of each gear hob for Sandvik's customers. "And we are receiving very good feedback," states a pleased Küpper. He is also more than satisfied with the measuring time: it takes us around 25 minutes to measure a module 4 hob with 70 teeth and enter the results in the report. This process took 2.5 hours in the past, a reduction of approx. 80 percent.