Automatic Gaging for Gear Precision

Premier Precision, Cornelius, NC, won a contract to produce precision gear blank pinions for one of the US Big Three automakers. First it purchased six new automatic Kummer Precision boring machines to run a "lights out" part producing program scheduled 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In the process of making the gear blanks from 5120 H modified steel a 12% scrap rate emerged.

To combat the high scrap rate, Edmunds Gages built a series of automatic gaging systems specifically for the Premier Precision gear blank. The gages are self-contained units which accept interchangeable dedicated part tooling, allowing Premier the flexibility to run different parts with minimal setup and downtime. A Computer Aided Gage (CAG) provides a CRT for the operator and signals to the part producing machines for "feedback."

The Edmunds Gages system measures 11 critical characteristics in 4.5 seconds. "Automatic gaging has reduced our scrap rate to 0.25%, and lowered tooling costs," says Rick Ragan, Premier Precision quality assurance manager. "We've also cut 48 hours from our weekly production time schedule producing the same amount of parts." To date, Premier Precision has shipped 24 million gear blank pinions without a single reject.