Handling of Gear Rings

Task

Caterpillar manufactures the gear rings used in its crawlers and excavators. The manufacture of gear rings was to be automated all the way from blank to finished product. The production steps to be integrated are two Liebherr gear hobblers, a Rausch deburring machine and a Laborex washing station as well as the feeding and removal processes via RDL Engineering conveyor belts. All the processing steps will be automated via GÜDEL linear portals.

Solution

The solution was to arrange the two gear hobblers in one line and the deburring and washing machine in a second line. Each line was automated using a ZP-5 linear portal.

Scope of supply

GÜDEL's scope of supply was two ZP-5 line portals, a Siemens Sinumerik 840D portal control and the hydraulic gripper for the gear rings.
The installation, programming and initial start-up were also included in GÜDEL's scope of supply.

Result

Despite interfacing with five different companies, the entire initial start-up was concluded within four weeks. Moreover the production variety of twenty different parts with diameters varying from 280 mm to 470 mm was realized with a single gripper without retrofitting.