Merit gears up for growing role in off-highway, stationary applications - Mechanical Powertrain Component Supplement - Merit Gear

Diesel Progress North American Edition, March, 1999 by Mark McNeely

Few gear manufacturers would argue that theirs is an emerging industry. Yet for all its maturity, a tremendous amount of money and effort continues to be expended by gear companies to better hone their gear grinding, hobbing and heat treating techniques and capabilities.

A good example is Merit Gear. By focusing on its core gear-making competencies, the Antigo, Wis., company has carved out a significant and growing niche in the production of off-highway and stationary equipment gear products.

"Our objective is to be our customers' in-house gear department," said Eric Schumann, president of Merit Gear. "As we see the movement of manufacturers focusing on their core competencies, companies are increasingly letting gears fall outside the areas of their core competency. They don't want to deal with the technology, the capital and labor costs."

Conversely, Merit Gear has invested substantially over the past few years on upgrading and improving its production processes across the board. According to Schumann, over the last three years a sum equivalent to approximately 15 percent of sales has been reinvested in new machining, personnel and training, as well as quality control equipment. He views Merit's core competencies as gear cutting, heat treatment and product inspection/measurement.

"The capital investments have brought in capabilities of both developing new products and producing existing products faster and better," said Randy Meis, general manager. "New products are definitely a focus, with our capabilities to produce higher speed and higher accuracy gearing. We've also realized that the new equipment not only makes parts faster, but at a higher quality. So we've got a double bonus."

Schumann added, "From our agility to our application of new technologies and innovations, together we have created a group that is able to effectively put together a very good product offering."

Merit's gear manufacturing capabilities currently range in sizes up to 24 in. diameters, with spur, helical and internal gears from 1.0 to 24 in., sprockets from 1.5 to 24 in., splined shafts from 1.0 to 12 in. and ground gearing from 1.0 to 15.75 in. Applications include construction equipment drives and internal splines, marine propeller shafts, lift truck drive pinions, farm equipment oil pump gears, engine and transmission gears, hydraulic actuator torque shafts, compressor gears, specialized military shafts and gears, as well as industrial applications such as printing presses and robotics.

Recent machine acquisitions include two Gleason TAG 400 gear grinders capable of grinding class 12 gearing up to 15.75 in. in diameter; two Gleason CNC high-speed gear hobbers; an Okuma LB 4511/1000 turning center; and a Pfauter P-900 six-axis CNC gear hobber. In the quality lab, Merit has also added a Hofler ZP630 gear checker, with an eight-station auto probe changer, along with a ZME 402 gear checker.

Schumann said Merit's gear cutting capabilities now go up to two-thirds of a meter. "I think much of our success is derived from the fact that we have focused on particular sizes, and we've said no to the very small or very large gears and no to the spiral bevels or nonparalleling gearing," he said. "That has helped us and allowed us to focus and be competitive in the ranks where we're working. It's important to look at expansion as a process so we don't weaken our core competencies."

But while Merit wants to make noise about its intention to grow its business both through customer diversification and gear-making expansion, a key design directive for the products is to reduce noise.

Reducing noise in power transmission components, whether it's the engine, transmission, hydraulic system or some other drive, receives a great deal of attention from both an individual component and an overall vehicle design standpoint. Such design engineering always calls for close cooperation, if not simultaneous design, with the suppliers of components - including gears.

"We've been involved with concurrent design," said Don Clemins, manufacturing manager. "The big trick is to take the design on a piece of paper and be able to manufacture it. Also, you have to be able to manufacture the gear to the design, but not be cost prohibitive. So we've been working hand-in-hand with the product designers right through the whole process. That's Merit's view of design for manufacturability."

Merit Gear is seeing an increased use of high contact spur gears as one solution to reduce gear noise, Clemins explained. "One example is a motorcycle transmission that was redesigned where the whole gearbox incorporated high-contact spur gears. The box ran absolutely quiet. And as for performance, it was tested and those gears actually performed better than the design it replaced."

"And that's not just with motorcycles," added Bill Eschmann, vice president of sales. "Gear noise is paramount with everybody today, no matter what kind of equipment.

"One of our customers makes pumps for fire trucks and even though a fire truck is noisy for other reasons, they're still concerned about the gear noise."