ARi

The automobile industry is taking a leap toward technological advancements with the advancement of fully automated and connected vehicles in pace. The situation is such that the usage of gear is coming down and may even face the ultimate fate of elimination.

Illinois-headquartered company ARi is enabling companies to readjust their business models to deliver value and remain competitive in the market by providing integrated engineering solutions to clients.

Gear and Technological Advancement: A Challenge

The predominant attribute of the gear tech landscape is that the challenges and trends go hand in hand. In simpler words, it relates to how a particular trend has to be approached in terms of technological advancements. With the conventional manufacturing processes shifting towards newer and smarter machines, stakeholders are leaving no stone unturned to make an entry in the industry 4.0 arena through data-driven and connected technologies. However, even as technology is advancing, the labor skillset remains stagnant. It is getting increasingly difficult to train the workforce and keep pace with the advancements at the same time, particularly due to the need for higher investment to get resources trained in a particular field.  

It is true that gears are the most common tools that have gained an important place in multiple industries at this point, right from power generation, industrial missionaries machinery, automobile, or for commercial and household use. However, the requirements vary from industry to industry. The common trend that we have seen over the years sums back to the advancements that are currently going on in the marketplace—everybody is expecting the performance characteristics to improve. Consumers are looking for high-performing gears with noise reduction capabilities. Besides, the demand for high-quality gears at cheaper manufacturing costs is also escalating.

When we talk about high-performing gear in automobiles, we generally consider factors like improving the lifetime of the vehicle, reduce its overall weight, and decrease the number of steps that will be involved to manufacture the gear. With advanced technologies evolving constantly, the need for newer solutions like additive manufacturing gets all the more essential to reduce costs and simplify processes. These are factors that I see as a trend and challenge at the same time. Viable alternatives need to be figured out to improve the gear manufacturing process.

The ARi Approach to Gear Manufacturing

As an engineering solutions and services provider, ARi is committed to keeping up with the pace of technological advancements. We are currently working on some of the initiatives that support the building of smarter machines and processes to help bring the benefits of advanced technology into the traditional manufacturing space. To place facts, conventional gear manufacturing industries are looking for opportunities to upgrade themselves to keep up with the pace of technology. We implement our customized solutions with the conventional gear manufactures and try to bring them up to the speed of the market by developing intelligent systems to decrease the time to market the products. These systems can analyze product design and read the necessary manufacturing parameters. We try to incorporate the information gathered from the design and development phase into the manufacturing systems and ensure that the product is manufactured as per the system specifications.

The process includes working closely with clients on the design, development, and manufacturing. In fact, our teams involve themselves in the process right from the design phase to the deployment phase that makes it easy to connect the dots to figure out how to implement the technology into the concept that ARi is trying to support its clients. We develop these systems that can analyze the product design and read the necessary manufacturing parameters directly from the design.

When it comes to the inspection, ARi provides a sophisticated inspection system to help measure the gear features accurately and upload the data into the cloud. The cloud data analytic system then analyzes the measurements and creates a completely closed-loop system of the manufacturing and inspection, resulting in a perfectly tested product. Through the entire cycle, we try to adapt to the current technology and implement it to help gear manufacturers upgrading to the latest requirements.

The Relevance of Gear in Future

There is no denying the fact that one of mankind’s greatest inventions to date is gear. It has been pivotal to any of the mechanisms that we have used in the past. However, as gear is taking a different transformation at this point in terms of technology, it requires a bit of re-engineering to make it lighter and durable in the new world. What should be done now is to find the right material based on the metallurgy and chemical engineering that we need to put in place. Moreover, the advances in new manufacturing techniques should help us possibly to work on the materials that we cannot even think of doing today. Advancements in technology are occurring at a faster rate, and it is of paramount importance that our machinery and manufacturing processes keep up with the pace.

We also need to think about the data proven manufacturing platforms with connected technologies. Smarter machines driven by connected technologies will make manufacturing of gears optimal with wastage going from minimal to none. Although the industry requirement or need for gear has changed in the contemporary world, I firmly believe that it cannot be eliminated completely.