Timken opens gear drive manufacturing facility in Houston

The Timken Co., North Canton, Ohio, has opened a 27,000-sq.-ft. gear drive manufacturing facility in Houston. Part of the Timken Power Systems group, the plant will improve production efficiencies in the manufacture of Philadelphia Gear® high-speed drives.

The facility is equipped with two 5-axis machines the employ gear milling technology instead of the traditional hobbing process. These machines can perform up to six different operations used to produce helical gears, shafts, and pinions from raw material, with the potential to reduce the original equipment production cycle by weeks.

"The gear milling process, for example, can reduce pure machine time of a standard-sized gear from 110 hours to 25 hours," said Boyd Swearingen, general manager of the new facility, as well as Timken Power Systems' business in the Gulf Coast, Latin America, and Middle East regions.