Good Points Why Centerless Grindign Is Better Than Traditional Grinding

With the pressure to be more profitable by reducing costs in production facilities, manufacturing companies today reviewing their entire manufacturing processes. This is notable when choosing the right production process can be the difference to being profitable or losing money and becoming extinct.

One of the many processes under review is the grinding process. Below are listed three basic points why manufacturers are choosing centerless grinding over traditional OD grinding that has been the standard of the grinding industry for many years in the production of round diameter parts.

The Part's Contour or Shape

The contour or shape is probably one of if not the most important factor to consider when determining the grinding process to employ in your production line. Straight parts without an undercut generally are perfect for centerless type of grinding machines. Also ideal are steel bars and rods and other long pieces of material that are round. These parts and rods can be inserted across the work blades from front of the grinder moving between the grinding wheel and the regulating wheel the whole time being ground into size and then exit from the rear of the machine very quickly and easily. This is called through feed grinding. Basically you can continuously insert one part after another into the machine without having to chuck up or set up another part each time.

Speed of The Grinding Process

A second huge advantage with centerless grinding as mentioned previously is the elimination of part set up or the need to chuck up the part as is required in other forms of grinding. This minimum handling of the work pieces and material definitely decreases labor costs and increases the speed of production. Centerless grinders are many times equipped with some type of automation such as automatic part feeders. Converting centerless machines to automation has led to blazing processing speeds and significantly lower labor costs. When a manufacturing company needs to bring material into size rapidly, choosing to go with a centerless grinder machine is a no-brainer.

Strict Tolerances

The third and final reason why manufacturers have looked for replacement technologies for OD grinding is that many parts require very strict dimensional tolerances and size accuracy. Only centerless grinding can produce tolerances in the millionths of an inch or centimeter. Traditional OD grinding just can't deliver such tight tolerance and size rigidity. With so many products manufactured for the growing medical and aerospace industries, OD grinding is losing ground. To meet the manufacturer's specifications, manufacturers of these types of parts need to hold very strict or high level dimensional tolerances.

To sum up, all manufacturing companies need to their production lines running as fast as possible. Decisions will need to be made as to which processes need to be changed or kept. Most importantly the difference raising profits will be remaining on schedule and lowering. Only choosing the right manufacturing process can do that.