Carbide Hobbing Case Study

Yef,im Kotlyar

Ihisallticle was 61'S'! Intreductlon and sometimes conflicting, recommendation 011

puhlisibed,at the AGMA Bodine Electric Co. of Chicago. a, has a 97- these details. This is why many companies. man-
2001falltechnicalmeeting. year history of fine- and medium-pitch gear man- ufacturing in small to medium lot sizes. have not
ufacturing. Like anywhere else, traditions, old rushed to implement carbide bobbing. Also, some
systems, and structures can be beneficial, but they companies tried and then abandoned this technol-
Printedl with permission
can also become paradigms and obstacles to fur- ogy altogether.
of the copyright ho'I'der,
ther improvements. We were producing a high This article is a case study featuring one manu-
the American Gear
quality product, but our goal was to become more facturing cell solely implemented with carbide
iManufacturers cost effective, Carbide bobbing is seen as a tech- bobbing technology. The annual output is
Association, 1500 Kingl nological innovation capable of enabling a dra- 250,000-300,000 gears, with an average just-
Street SUite 20ill, matic, rather than an incremental, enhancement to in-time lot size of about 200-300 gears.
AI'exand'ria, Virginia 22314. productivity and cost avings, Approximately 150 different sizes and pitches are
Copies of the Ipaper are Nowadays, no one denies that carbide hobbing produced, with an average of four setup change
availabletrom is feasible. Many questions remain, however, over two shifts. Most of the gears are fini sh hobbed
the assecletion, regarding the best applications, carbide material. to AGMA 9 quality level. The pitches range from
hob sharpening, coaling and recoating, hob han- 1.2-64 DP.
dling, hob consi teney, optimum hob wear, best The successful performance of carbide hob-
Statements presented lin
cutting conditions, concerns :for the initial cutting bing is predicated on various contributing factors,
this paper are those, of the
tool investment and production cost In short, "the such as machine, fixture, blanks, hob mainte-
author and may not repre·
devil was in the details." The industry had few, nance, and process management systems, These
sentfhe' position or the' factors will also be discussed,
o,pinion 'o~the American Application and Historical Perspective
GeaJ Manufacturers LSL USL Bodine Electric produces a large variety of
Association. parts with gearing elements-spur and helical
gears and shafts, solid- and bore-type pinions,
worms. and worm gears. For the introduction of
carbide hobbing, we decided. to select the "nat"
gear family because of its large volume.
MaC/,ilies. Initially, we had only outdated! hob-
Tolerance -'
bing machines in the flat gear cell. The average

L-
l 6. Sigma
--J: machine age was 20 years, The use of longer- and
higher-performance hobs was limited by the
Figure 1 Process var;iatioll for the "flat gear" j machines' rpm and shifting capability. Only two
famil.y was out ofeomrol. I
(out of rive) hobbing machines had a.n automatic
shifting feature. There was not precise control on
hob positioning relative to the workpiece or the
bob shifting di lance. The e machines were in
constant need of maintenance.
Fixlllring and Automation. Only 'two
machines in the cell had automatic loaders,
Fixturing and automation documentation was not
readily available, Some of the fixture items were
reverse engineered and not always compatible
with each other. Our company relied mostly on the
Figure 2-COSI breakdowlI .by percentage for lIew experience of setup people. This led to a wide
carbide hobbi,lg: cell: variation in setups. fixture, and cutting conditions.
1.2 MAY/JUNE 2002 • GEA,R TECHNOLOGY. www.gl!lsrtecllnology.com • www.oowertrsnsmiseton.com
 Cutting Tools. A long-standing tradition in
fine-pitch gear manufacturing wa . the use of 0-

called" quare" hobs made out of high-speed steel

(HSS). Use of carbide and longer hobs waslimit-
ed by each machine's rpm capability and shifting
length. re pectively,
Cutting Condjtions. Our practice was to use
very conservative cutting conditions that were out-
dated .. Different machine had different limitations
with re peel to rigidity and rpm capability. The per-
fonnance of each machine was not monitored. The
cutting conditions and cycle times could vary
depending on the setup person. machine inspection
reo ults, and cutting tool used at the time.
Btallks. All blanks were outsourced, The sup-
pliers would grind one face of the gear blank ,
enabling us to stack three to five parts per load
during the bobbing proces . De pile thiseffort ..
the bore's quaHty and face paralleli m were
incon isteru, Quality Improvement
Outso.rlreillg..In addition to five machine mak- • Process capability improvements,
ing flal gears in-house. we were outsourcing hob- • Further tightening of the tolerances. to produce a
bing and skiving at an annual cost of $281.000. higher quality product
Adding to !hat the annual blanking outsourcing of Productilvity Improvements
$563,000, our total flat gear outsourcing cost came • Reduce cycle times and increase production
to $844,000. Other concerns with outsourcing were with the same number of people.
quality and on-time delivery. •. Reduce setup time.
Quality~ The flar gear proces. variation was • Reduce proce s debugging time.
out of control. as showa on the graph ill Figure 1. Cost l:mpJIOvements
Although we had extremely knowledgeable peo- • Cost reductions as a result of productivity
ple who were able to produce quality parts improvements.
de pite u iDg old technology, many etup would • Lower cutting tool cost per gear or keep it the
turn into development projects, which took its toll arne as HSS.
on our productivity and profitability. • Reductionin rework cost,
The high quality of the product wa main- Additional Capacity
tamed at a. co t Extra. non-value-added tep of • Skiving Capabilities.
100% inspecting and orting were nece ary.]o • Reduction in outsourcing.
shortv the co t of flat gear manufacturing was I Considerations fOIi New Technology
high. We wanted to improve the proce and We could have benefited by improving the
replace "product control" with "process control." process in small incremental changes. Some
P~(Jductillity. Cycle times were very long, examples are reworking the machines.huying
Frequently.m achieve the desired quality, setup better cutting tools, improving the fixture, buy-
personnel would use more con ervative cutting ing better blanks. and even stressing greater con-
conditions, thu further increa ing cycle times trol of OUi processes, These would have all
and reducing productivity. On average, there was brought some semblance of succe .
less than one etup per machine per day. The nnetheless, we felr tilat we needed drastic,
Vefim IKotlyar
is Iht gear technologv and
inexpensive, conventional, off-the- helf" quare" rather than incremental. improvements to bring processing I1wlIllger at
hob had to be re-sharpened quite frequently. thus the process under control and achieve co I reduc- Bodine Electric Co., tocated
eli rupting production flow. Lean manufacturing tion. This is why we decided to blow up every- in Chicago, lL For man!
Ilion 20 years. he worked in
stresses the importance of just-in-lime manufac- thing .. investigate new carbide bobbing technolo- dijferl'fII capacities on rhe
turing and continuous reduction of work-in- gy, and bring a new pirit into the factory. development and implemen-
progress. This lead to smaller lot sizes and At the same time, we wanted to bring in tech- tation of various gear mallu·
facturing and inspection
greater setup frequency per day. nology that would work from the onset. We want-
technotogies. He is also alt
In summary, we had an abundance of opportu- ed to be conservative in our estimate , making autnor of IIUll'.\' anicle on
nities: sure that there would 1I0t be exce ie proce gear-related subject».
1OI101101.pOW.flrtransmisSlon,com • ·www.gurllJclln0/ogy.com • GEAR TECHNOLOGY' MAY/JUNE 2002 13
 • The selection was based on business reasons
rather than technical reason .
Dry or Wet-That Was ,the Questioll, We test-
ed both wet and dry bobbing. Eventually, we
selected the wet process because we felt it was a
safer approach to the introduction of new tech-
nology. At that time, our perception was that dry
bobbing required more engineering involvement
and R&D, Each pitch and size had to be tested
and fined-tuned for optimum hob geometry and
cutting conditions. The machine was 10 be placed
Figure 4--New syste.11Iincluded. jl,exible automa-
in a gear-manufacturing cell that was producing
tion with gall try loader.
more than 150 different sizes and pitches ..So, the
testing and development of every part could
become quite overwhelming. Also, we experi-
enced less tool wear with wet carbide hobbing,
Nevertheles , we acquired a dry bobbing option.
This was just in case the process is further devel-
oped and better information about dry bobbing
becomes readily available.
Best Car.bide Hobbing Appiicati,llTls? It. seems
Figure 5-PrecisiDlI ql~ick-c"allge. jace-dampLng that the fine- and medium-pitch fini h hobbed
[ixlllrll for damping more than 150 types oj parts. gears are the best candidates for the carbide hob-
debugging. So we decided that a test would be the bing technology. The finish bobbing feed rate is
ideal first step toward a successful implementa- restrained by the feed scallop thus,
limitations;
tion of new carbide bobbing technology. productivity improvements cannot be achieved
Robbing Test by increasing the feed rate. Another option for
Test Objectives productivity improvement-multistart hobbing-
• To learn more about potential challenges, cannot be employed for precision hobbingeither.
• To understand tile pro and cons of carbide hob- The only viable option for productivity improve-
bing as applicable to our pitch and size ranges. ment was increasing the hob speed.
• To have the process debugged prior to purchas- Support Systems Needed. We came to the con-
ing the machine. clusion that in-depth engineering support systems
• To specify the machine acceptance criteria would be needed for successful carbide hobbing.
based all challenges experienced during te ling. Mistake with carbide hobs co t much more than
o To compare machine suppliers. they do w.ith traditional HSS hob .
• To start developing carbide bobbi.ng sUpjXlrt ystems. Those systems would include:
We anticipated a need for a better engineering • Databa e with simple means of extracting setup
support system as well as a simpler; more disci- data for every part.
plined process monitoring system that would give • Ease of database maintenance.
us reliable feedback. We knew that after the major • A detailed hob monitoring sy tern, which is
investment, the flat gear cell would be crutinized. unprecedented in a production environment.
Test Filldin,gs& Potelltial Clzallellge&. • Detailed production and value-added monitoring.
• This is an emerging technology, although il New Hobbing Technology
started 30 years ago. The 1"itia/lnvestment. After conducting tests
• Many tried but abandoned carbide hob bing , and selecting a vendor, we purchased the equip-
• Greater engineering support will be required. ment with co t distribution a hown in the graph
'. There was no industry consensus on recommen- in Figure 2. The total package included machine,
dations. automation, quick-change fixture, and carbide
• The mistakes are much more expensive. cutting 100Is. In addition, we purchased a new
• The tool cost per gear was an unknown factor, turning machine and developed corresponding
• The initial cutting tool investment is much support systems.
greater. New CNC Hobbing Machine Highlights (Fig. 3).
• We found three vendors all capable of achieving .• 8 CNC axes, including gantry.
our tighter quality requirements. • Higher cutting speed available.
14, MAYfJU'NE 2002 .' GEAR TECHNOLOGY • www.gl;Ulrt~chnology.com • www.powerlransmission.com
• Longer hob shifting capability.
• Capable of wet and dry hobbing,
• Hydraulic hob arbor clamping ..
• Skiving capability,
• Flexible Automation with Gantry Loader (F.ig. 4).
• Six seconds load/unload.
• Capable of handling roth bore- and haft-type
parts.
• Large uruIoad Image capacity. Figure 6-K.grade. j;,- -coated carbide 1mb' (left) and P~grad , 'liA1N..coaled
• OC controlled loader po itions, carbide 1I0b.
The Fixlunng. Because the fixture quality is
critical to process capability, we acquired a preci-
ion, quick-change, face-clamping fixture (Fig. 5).
The fixture had a modular de ign for more than
150 parts. The design was al 0 based on the COD-
sideration of clamping the parts as close as po i-
ble [a the cutting action. At rno I. there are three
fixture items that need to be replaced when chang-
ing over from one part to another: backing. clamp-
ingand arbor.
The number of parts per load was reduced 110
two. CNC hobbing diminishe the effect of tack-
ing gears per load because: a) a higher feed rate
can be used during the hob approach travel. and b)
the load/unload time is minimal. lricidentally, II
smaller number of parts per load improved the
gear quality. AI] fixture drawings were computer-
ized and became a part. of setup documentation.
Ti,e Blanks. A turning process was developed
011 a newly purchased CNC lathe. It provided
O.O(X)2- 0.0005" face parallelism and bore-to-face
perpendicularity. This kiad of turning quality
eliminated! the need to grind gear face . In fact. the
blank quality coming out of our CNC lathe wa Hgulle' 7-Coali'.lg fractures call eonoibiu« to poor
flob performance. Multiple coaJilJg layers chipped
more consi tent than our outside-purchased 01/, lI,e outer surface (top).wllile tile lower coating
blanks having the one face ground. layer~ have remained intact (bottom).
The new turning machine also made it possible enjoying approximately the same tool co t per
to tighten the tolerance of the bore size. The lathe gear. (Note that carbide hobs were three to five
was strategically placed ne 1 to the CN bobbing time more expensive when compared to tradi-
machine to enable one-piece flow .. tional "square" HSS fine-pitch hobs.) However,
ClUbiLle Cutting Tools. We started with K- we continued to u e the same hob. Before we sent
grade hob and TiN coating (Fig. 6). However, 111 it for harpening. we achieved the hob life
addition, we purchased a few P-grade hob. with- improvement of elevenfold (2.639 gears) a com-
TiAIN coating (Fig. 6). Carbide hobs wererun at pared with HSS " quare" hobs.
600' surface feet per minute (SFM) of circumfer- After the first hob harpening, we realized
ential speed. The feed rate was just 3_ conserva- there was work 10 be done in mastering this tech-
tive as in the case of HSS nabs. The conservative nology. Lesson #1. learned: Without recoating the
feed rates were necessary becaa e of feed callop hobs •.they failed mi erably. We also learned that,
depth limitations. The first peek at the carbide hob with respect to the cutting tools, our limited initial
life provided impressive results. The first run lest provided few comforting answers. Recom-
resulted in 765 parts without a hob change. mendations from hob uppliers and machine
Making 3.4 times as many gears meant thatthe builders continued to be inconsistent and, at times,
tool cost per gear would be spproxirnately the even contradictory. We till had a lot of questions.
same as in 'the ca e of HSS. We were glad that we Should we use P'-grade or K-grade?' What was the
were able to reduce the cycle time threefold while best coating for our application? What was the
www.powertransm/ssion.com • www.g·S8rlechnology.com • GEAR TECHNOLOGY' MAY/JUNE 2002 15
 near the bottom of the illustration.
Gear Center Line
We have yet to find overall consistency in hob
performance. Although the greatest performance
factor is probably how people use the hobs, other
contributing factors are sharpening, coating qual-
ity; and the ability of the coating layers to stick to
the previous layer.
Every single carbide hob has a history work-
sheet. Currently. we have more than 80 carbide
hobs that service our flat gear cell. Every time the
hob is used, the setup people record the date, the
--II Roughing
Zone
Generating __
Zone gear number, and the number of gears bobbed.
The rest of the worksheet is calculated automati-
Hob Wear cally. One of the important characteristics is

LA
material removal per cutting edge of the hob.
Hob .Le'.lgth Significance. In addition to
Hob Length
changing the hob material to carbide. we intro-
duced longer hobs. This further reduced the cut-
Hob Wear Distnbution

Figure Sa-Wear distributioll OIl a shorter hob. Ling tool cost per gear and reduced downtime
caused by hob change because longer hobs make
Gear Cen1er Line
more gears per sharpening. Conventional think-
ing implies that the improvement would be pro-
portional to the hob length increase.
However, in reality. the improvement is pro-
portional to the shifting increase. Figure 8a and
8b show the load and wear distribution 011 short
and longer hobs, Short hobs may have little or no
shifting length available. Frequently. a small hob
_ Roughing _ Generatins__ Shifting
Zone Zone Zone length increase can result in manyfold hob per-
Hob Wear formance improvements.
j ,----- C!dtilJg Tools Cost Reduction, A conservative
estimate of per-gear tooling cost reduction is
close [0 threefold (Fig. 9).
Hob Wear Distribution Support SysCems
Figure 8b- Wear distribulioll(HI a lmlger hob. To understand and maintain the carbide hob-
optimum wear? What were the sharpening bing process. our company introduced a system
nuances (i.e, edge preparation)? When was the for monitoring process performance. A setup
right time to strip the coaling, and was itpossi- database wa created to include all process docu-
ble? What was the hob life and tool cost per gear? mentation. such as fixture. cutting tools. gear
Was there any predictability in carbide hobbing? parameters. cutting conditions. cycle time and
Figure 7 is an example of one of the many other necessary setup information. For every
challenges that we experienced. Coating fractures setup, the database query creates a single sheet of
can contribute to poor hob performance. Coaling paper with the late t etup information.
on the illustration is breaking away from the tool The original tooling has been expanded to
Close inspection within theseareas reveals multi- process more than .180 differem part numbers.
pie coating layers that chipped on the outer sur- Machine part programs are backed upperiodically,
face, while the lower coating layers have Fixture and automation change parts are stored in
remained intact. a clearly marked storage area adjacent to the
Layer Bllildup. ..Each coating is approximately machine. A~ was mentioned before, every hob has
0.0004" thick. The top layer is a single layer of a worksheet with a history of usage, sharpening,
TiAIN. Underneath that are two layers of Futura and recoating ..Figures 10 and 11 demonstrate pro-
coating, each composed of 27-35 alternating sub- ductivity over a three-month period..
[ayers ofntanium nitride (TiN) and titanium alu- Improvements Sum_mary
minum nitride (TiAlN). The yellow lines between ProductivUy Imp,-,ovemerlts. Major productiv-
layers are TIN. The light-colored ubstrate is seen ity improvements were realized due to carbide
16 MAY/JUNE 2002 • GEAR TECHNOLOGY • www.g(!art,«,~hn"/o.gy.c,,m • www.powe,r,a"smissJon.com
hobs having speed capabilities three times higher
than HSS hobs, Other factors contributing to the
$0.200
productivity improvements were etup time
reduction, CNC-controlled hob travels, more con- $0.150
,. Sharpen. cost
sistent etups and cycle time , a drastic reduction $0 ..1100
in process debugging time for lead/invo- .11rIj,tjalcost
$0.050
lute/runout problems, and precise calculations of
bobbing cycles and goal setting. $0.000
De pite all of the challenges with carbide hobs, Carbide I'Iobs IHSS Ilobs,
the productivity improvement made it possible for Figure ~Cost-per-gear ,comparison between carbide(lIId liS'S lI.obs.
u to replace four machines. In addition, we
~r- ~~tlfl.B-~·C~-~~ -,
increased production by in-sourcing all gear hob-
5000
bing and k.iving, with a $280.,000 annual volume.
QlllZlily improvemellt. Prorated annual scrap
savings was $47,000 as compared with three
mechanical pinion cells using old machines and
HSS cutting 1001s and producing approximately the
17· 2-1· aI· 7· 1.... 21·
same amount of parts (Fig. 12). .lJI-..lJI Ng Ng Ng

Other cost improvements resulted from process

Figure I()......Total production ,d,.ril.lgcarbide lIobbiJlgtrial.
capability improvements. Figure 13 shows that the
six-sigma process variation became smaller than the lime Allocation
1,.1 ..L-l ..I.. J-L-.l
tolerance due to improving upon all of the process ClNcJn..VaIue Pdded: Tlrre I
-

.'seI!!p Time i
variables: new machines that were statistically eval-
!
• Value, Nlded T1me
uated for the process capability during the runoff,
AA quality cutting 10015. preci ion fixtures, better
quality blanks, ISO-compliant. quality systems, and
having setup and cutting parameter consistency, The
improvements in the process capability made it pos-
1_1- -
12·
.lift
18-
.........
2e. _
-- '-
10.
.IJl
'--
17.
.~u
2."
.a.I
- ~I·~- 1·
.lJI Aug
\01,.
......
31.
Aug
sible to reduce the inspection and rework expenses.
III closing. the investment ill new carbide hob- Figure l1-Time allocation breakdown during carbide 1I0bb.illg trial.
bing technology made us look at our operation $60.000 r----------......;,;=~~-----."
Annual

under a. microscope and improve upon other con-

tributing factors that lead to uccessful gear man- $40.000+------------------
ufaeturing. These are fixtures, machines, cuniag $30.000+-----------------

tools, blanks. and qUality system. The results are 520.000 +-----------------
better quality gears at a lower cast.O $0 IL--"
$10.000~~-----------------_

cnc Gear Mechanlcsl Pinion

Manufacturing Manufacturing
Aeknowledgment
The author would like to express his gratitude to Figure 12-Compnrison of ammal scrap rates between CNC alld mecllatlical'
manufacturing.
Mark Ryba and Paul Ruff for their editing help.
LSL USL
Process Variation

j\
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